On October 6, 2023, in Hanoi, the conference and the international expo of Smart Banking 2023 with the theme of “Harnessing and Leveraging Data: Shaping the Future of the Banking Industry in the Digital Age” was co-organized by Vietnam Banks’ Association, the Information Technology Department of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), the Information Security Department of the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC), and the IEC Group.
According to the statistics of the SBV, as of the end of 2022, the banking sector had invested over VND 15,000 billion for the digital transformation; focused on cleaning 51 million accounts at the National Credit Information Center of Vietnam (CIC) as well as the credit institutions, ensuring 100% of customers’ data to be validated through the National Population Database.
However, in the digital transformation process as well as the application of new models based on the modern technologies, the banking industry has faced many challenges, including the maintenance of the balance between the exploitation and the protection of data. Therefore, the Conference was organized with the aim of enabling the authorities, researchers and the credit institutions to discuss about the current regulations, the legal requirements, as well as to create more favorable conditions for the commercial banks and the credit institutions to obtain information and to exchange experience, and also to share about the difficulties and propose possible measures to support the banking sector in the digital transformation for successful and sustainable development.
Speaking at the Conference, Deputy Governor Pham Tien Dzung shared that the development and effective exploitation of digital data is one of the nine groups of key tasks for the realization of the goals of the digital transformation in the banking sector as stipulated in Decision No. 810/QD-NHNN issued by the SBV Governor. Data not only enables banks to authenticate and identify their customers, but also through the technical applications, the banks can analyze and understand about their customers’ behaviors and the consumption trends, thereby helping them to make appropriate decisions for the development and provision of products and services to meet the market demands, and to improve the operational efficiency.
Over the past time, identifying the important role of data in the digital transformation in the banking industry, the SBV has regularly reviewed and improved the legal frameworks to create favorable conditions for the connection, the exploitation of data, and the application of technologies in order to promote the digital transformation based on the security and safety of the banking operations.
The SBV Deputy Governor requested the commercial banks to focus on cleaning and digitizing the existing data, and to apply technologies in generating clean data in the provision of services to their customers. In addition, in the process when their customers are conducting transactions, the commercial banks are requested to apply the available data in order to ensure that the person conducting each transaction is exactly the one registered with the bank, which can prevent the cases of using bank accounts for illegal transactions.
Deputy Governor Pham Tien Dzung also requested the CIC to provide more products and services to enable the banks to evaluate their customers’ ability of debt payment.
The SBV Deputy Governor asserted that the SBV would always accompany the banks by formulating a good legal basis for the development of new banking products and services. The SBV Deputy Governor added that, apart from the development of new banking products and services, the commercial banks also need to ensure the smooth operations, the safety and security of their operations; and to actively implement Scheme 06.
The panelists in the panel discussion
Within the framework of the Smart Banking 2023 event, a practical exercise was conducted in the form of system defense against attacks (DF Cyber Defense 2023). This was the largest annual event on preventing and combating cyber attacks in the finance and banking sector in Vietnam.
Le Hang