HDBank Connects Vietnamese Customers to 156 Countries Through TerraPay Partnership

The Deal

HDBank has linked its platform to TerraPay's cross-border payment infrastructure, opening a direct channel for Vietnamese retail customers and small and medium-sized enterprises to send funds internationally in real time. The partnership connects the bank's client base to recipient bank accounts and mobile wallets across more than 156 countries and territories, according to HDBank.

Customers will continue to initiate transactions through HDBank's existing channels. TerraPay handles the settlement and delivery to overseas endpoints. The bank is routing these payments through its current Swift connection, which means no major capital expenditure or platform rebuild is required on HDBank's side.

Why Vietnamese Banks Need Faster Rails

Vietnam's outbound payment flows have grown alongside the country's deepening integration into regional and global supply chains. Retail remittances, supplier payments for manufacturers, and cross-border e-commerce settlements all demand speed that legacy correspondent banking networks struggle to deliver. Traditional Swift messages can take days to clear, and fees stack up through intermediary banks.

TerraPay's network bypasses multiple correspondent layers by connecting directly to destination banks and mobile money operators. For HDBank, that translates into faster settlement times and simpler routing, particularly for payments to Southeast Asian neighbors, South Asia, and Africa where mobile wallet penetration is high.

Ani Sane, Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer at TerraPay, said banks like HDBank are central to how a country transacts globally, but correspondent banking infrastructure was not designed for the speed that today's outbound payment demand requires. The partnership gives HDBank a direct route to global reach through infrastructure the bank already trusts, enabling it to bring new capabilities to market faster and without disruption.

The Broader Southeast Asian Push

TerraPay has been methodically building bank partnerships across Southeast Asia. In the past eighteen months, the London-headquartered fintech has signed similar deals with lenders in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand. The strategy is to integrate into the existing banking stack rather than compete with it, positioning TerraPay as the middleware that connects domestic banks to fragmented international payment endpoints.

For Vietnamese SMEs, the service could reduce friction in paying overseas suppliers, particularly in markets where bank account details are less standardized or where mobile wallets are the primary financial access point. Garment exporters in Ho Chi Minh City sourcing fabric from India, for instance, can now settle invoices directly to a supplier's mobile wallet in Mumbai, cutting days off the payment cycle.

The partnership also reflects a broader shift in how Asian banks are thinking about correspondent banking. Rather than maintaining dozens of nostro accounts with foreign banks, mid-tier lenders are increasingly outsourcing global connectivity to specialized fintechs that aggregate liquidity and compliance across jurisdictions.

What This Means for Cross-Border Payment Competition

HDBank's move puts competitive pressure on other Vietnamese lenders to upgrade their cross-border capabilities. Vietcombank, VietinBank, and BIDV have all announced digital transformation initiatives in the past year, but few have moved as quickly to plug into real-time payment networks beyond ASEAN.

The deal also highlights the limits of regional payment integration. Despite progress on QR code interoperability and the ASEAN Payment Connectivity framework, intra-regional real-time payments remain patchy. Banks are turning to private networks like TerraPay, Thunes, and Nium to fill the gap while central banks negotiate bilateral arrangements.

For TerraPay, the HDBank partnership expands its footprint in one of Southeast Asia's fastest-growing digital banking markets. Vietnam's smartphone penetration exceeds seventy percent, and mobile banking adoption has accelerated since the pandemic. That creates a ready-made customer base for cross-border services that can be accessed through existing banking apps rather than standalone remittance platforms.

The question now is how quickly other Vietnamese banks will follow. If HDBank demonstrates material cost savings and faster settlement times, competitors will face pressure from both SME clients and retail customers to offer similar services. That could accelerate the shift away from traditional correspondent banking in Vietnam's mid-tier banking sector, with implications for how regional payment flows are routed in the next three to five years.