Circle said Vietnam’s domestic payment rails are advanced, while stablecoins may be most useful in cross-border settlement, liquidity and remittances.

Vietnam’s payments market is already highly digital, and that is shaping where stablecoins may be useful next. In a Circle blog post published on 21 October 2026, the company said domestic rails in Vietnam are mature enough that the more practical opportunity lies in cross-border settlement, liquidity, foreign exchange and remittances rather than in replacing local payment methods.

Circle said Vietnam ranks fourth globally in grassroots crypto adoption and estimated that 17 million to 21 million Vietnamese people hold digital assets out of a population of 101.6 million. But it also argued that the country’s everyday payments experience is already advanced, with QR payments, mobile banking and digital wallets widely used and local providers building strong infrastructure for domestic transfers.

The post said the NAPAS 24/7 real-time network, mobile wallets and QR clearing allow domestic funds to move instantly and reliably across the country. By contrast, cross-border flows still have to work through correspondent banking schedules, State Bank of Vietnam foreign-exchange clearing cycles and delays that can last several days, according to Circle.

Circle said the operational pain points it heard about during meetings in Vietnam centered on money moving across borders, not on domestic payments. It cited two examples: a cross-border provider supporting Vietnamese importers that said it had to pre-fund USD liquidity in overseas accounts up to three days in advance to cover supplier settlements over weekends, and a licensed remittance aggregator in Ho Chi Minh City that said settlement delays between foreign partners and local banks tied up working capital during peak remittance windows.

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