The strong growth of the digital economy and e-commerce over recent years has fundamentally changed the way goods and services are transacted. Instead of direct, in-person contact, transactions now mostly take place on digital platforms, where buyers and sellers do not meet and payments are made through cashless methods such as bank transfers, e-wallets, online payment gateways, or QR code scanning.
Experts and regulators expect that upgrading from QR bank transfer codes to QR payment codes will help commercial transactions be fully recorded according to the “goods - invoice - cash flow” cycle. Every step is connected online, ensuring transparency and a closed loop. Such an ecosystem not only helps increase government revenue but also promotes the digital economy, supports enterprises, and enhances the consumer experience.
Redefining the money flow
The push to upgrade from QR bank transfer codes to QR code payment, aimed at separating personal and commercial cash flows, emerged as the defining theme of the “QR Code Payments: Transparency and Unlimited Experience” conference held on November 19. According to Mr. Mai Son, Deputy Director General of the General Department of Taxation at the Ministry of Finance, the shift is essential to clearly distinguish regular money transfers from payments for goods and services. Such differentiation, he noted, not only improves the transparency of cash flows but also enhances the overall management of financial transactions.
Cash flow management goes beyond monitoring the movement of funds. It is central to identifying the correct taxpayers, determining actual revenue, and assessing tax liabilities. It is also a critical tool in detecting tax evasion, revenue under-reporting, and money laundering through electronic channels. Transparent financial flows, Mr. Son emphasized, help ensure more accurate and equitable tax compliance while building a reliable data foundation for policy design and tax system modernization.
In practice, cash flow data serves as the backbone for reconciling declared figures with real revenue. Payment records allow tax authorities to detect the actual earnings of individuals who conduct business without registration yet generate steady income on digital platforms. Monitoring these flows also helps expose unusual patterns, from circular transfers and disguised sales to anonymous payments used to conceal revenue.
This is why transparent electronic cash flows are seen as a prerequisite for rolling out modern tools such as electronic tax filing, e-invoicing, and building the sector’s digital databases.
A representative from the Ministry of Industry and Trade at the conference proposed that, from 2026 to 2030, e-commerce oversight should be grounded in a tightly-linked framework of three elements: goods, invoices, and cash flow. Goods circulating in the market must be accompanied by invoices; invoices must accurately reflect tax obligations; and resulting payments must be processed through banks or financial institutions. When these components operate in sync, regulators can ensure transparency and effectiveness regardless of how buyers and sellers choose to transact.
Smarter fiscal backbone
On the tax authority’s side, Mr. Son said regulators are rolling out a series of measures to support enterprises and household businesses, especially during the transition from fixed presumptive taxation to declaration-based taxation. Initiatives such as e-invoicing and the promotion of cashless payments, particularly QR payment, not only help reduce compliance costs but also enable small business owners to better manage cash flows by eliminating most manual book-keeping. Once all transactions are properly recorded, the tax authority gains a reliable data set for analysis, forecasting, and early detection of fraudulent behavior.
A modern payment system allows the tax authority to collect real-time data, thereby identifying early signs of irregularities such as opaque trading or the use of fake invoices. “This is a key factor in improving risk management, while protecting supply chains and consumer rights,” he stressed. “However, for cash flow management to be truly effective, close data connectivity and information sharing are required between tax authorities, banks, payment intermediaries, and other relevant entities.”
However, he also recommended that the banking sector provide technological and cost-related support to merchants and service providers, enabling them to adopt VietQRPay more easily in their daily business operations. He also noted that data sharing between tax authorities, banks, and payment intermediaries remains limited due to the absence of a unified legal framework. The lack of clear regulations on responsibilities, frequency, formats, and mechanisms for data exchange has hindered the effectiveness of inter-agency coordination.
Therefore, the tax authority hopes to soon establish an online data-connection system between banks and the tax administration, with synchronized data updates on a periodic basis - daily, weekly, or monthly. Such a system would help both sides access timely information and make better use of available data for tax management. In particular, for transactions showing unusual patterns or suspected links to money laundering, there must be mechanisms for periodic, automatic, or flexible information exchange between banks and tax authorities to ensure swift action.
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