On November 12, 2019 at the headquarters of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), Deputy Governor Dao Minh Tu had a meeting with the high-level mission of Développement International Desjardins (DID) on the Project of Strengthening the People’s Credit Funds Network (STEP project).
A snapshot of the meeting
Also attending the meeting were Mr. Pham Duc An, Chief of the SBV Office; Ms. Khuong Thanh Ha, Deputy Director General of the International Cooperation Department; Mr. Nguyen Trong Du, Deputy Chief Inspector of the Banking Supervision Agency; Mr. Nguyen Quoc Cuong, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Cooperative Bank of Vietnam (Co-op Bank). On the DID’s side, there were Ms. Isabelle Mireault, Member of the Board of Directors; Mr. Maxime Lavoix, Member of the Board of Directors, Specialist on restructuring and cooperative model transformation; Mr. Martin Ruel, Program Senior Director, and other senior experts from STEP project in Canada and Vietnam.
At the meeting, Mr. Martin Ruel, Program Senior Director, thanked Deputy Governor Dao Minh Tu for his time and hospitality. He reported to the SBV Deputy Governor some positive results that the STEP project has initially achieved. He emphasized that the STEP project is designed to increase financial access for Vietnamese men and women in the rural and agricultural areas, thanks to a more integrated and better-performing PCFs network and Co-op Bank. The STEP project with the support from Développement international Desjardins (DID) and the STEP team in cooperation with Co-op Bank has been implemented in 14 provinces across the three main regions of Vietnam: the North, the Center, and the South.
On behalf of the SBV Management Board, Deputy Governor Dao Minh Tu made high evaluation of the results of the Project in the recent years, thereby contributing to improving the operations of Co-op Bank and the system of People’s Credit Funds in Vietnam, such as: (i) Developing the internal audit toolkit for the members of the Supervisory Board at the People’s Credit Funds (PCFs); (ii) Proposing some new financial products and services of PCFs; (iii) Formulating a plan of organizational development for Co-op Bank; and (iv) Training the trainers for Co-op Bank’s officers to become part-time lecturers to share their experience and knowledge about the Canadian PCFs’ operations to the PCFs’ officials. Basically, these surveys have provided a lot of important information and policy recommendations, and have created the basis for the SBV to have an overview for the improvements of the policies for the PCFs’ operations in the coming time.
Deputy Governor Dao Minh Tu speaks at the meeting
Regarding the development of the core banking software for PCFs, the SBV Deputy Governor emphasized that it is very important to strengthen the management and operational capabilities of PCFs. He shared that the SBV has approved a pilot implementation of the core banking software based on cloud computing at a number of PCFs. Therefore, Deputy Governor Dao Minh Tu proposed that the Project should take into consideration the possibility to adjust this activity in the direction of recruiting experts to support the development of the core banking software for PCFs. He also discussed with the DID mission on the proposal of formulating a new project of restructuring the PCF system in Vietnam on the basis of DID’s experience in Canada.
Based on the data and information provided at the meeting, Deputy Governor Dao Minh Tu suggested that the DID mission continue to have more in-depth assessments on the organizational structures, the operations, the credit activities, and make analysis on the linkages and readiness of the system of PCFs. At the same time, he requested that the SBV’s International Cooperation Department, Co-op Bank and the DID mission continue to have further discussions and analysis for the SBV's functional departments to have some reference, following closely the practical situations.
Le Hang