On August 27-29, 2018, the delegation of the banking sector of Vietnam led by SBV Deputy Governor Nguyen Thi Hong attended the 16th Meeting of the Vietnam-Russia Inter-Bank Working Group, which was organized by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation in St. Petersburg. The Meeting was co-chaired by SBV Deputy Governor Nguyen Thi Hong and Deputy Governor Dmitry Skobelkin of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.
Deputy Governor Nguyen Thi Hong attends 16th Meeting of the Vietnam-Russia Inter-Bank Cooperation Working Group
Also attending the Meeting were representatives from the SBV entities, leaders of NAPAS and several commercial banks and enterprises. On the side of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, there were representatives from the relevant units and over 30 participants from banks, financial institutions and enterprises.
Reviewing the results obtained for one year since the 15th Meeting, the two sides acknowledged with delight the specific and practical cooperative activities based on the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in the previous meeting, as well as the implementation of the directions of the two central banks’ leaders. Over the past time, the relevant entities of the two sides have enhanced the discussions and work online, thereby promptly updating the progress of implementing the agreed tasks and acquiring information on the arising problems and proposing appropriate solutions. The commercial banks of the two countries have continued to conduct measures of enhancing payments for bilateral commercial transactions. Thanks to those efforts, many tasks as set in the Minutes of the 15th Meeting have been completed or being implemented with encouraging results, such as the completion of the discussion on the draft MoU on information cooperation and exchange about the supervision of the payment systems; the agreement on the understanding and the technical factors with regard to VND/RUB transactions in the Moscow Exchange; the roadmap for the implementation of the cooperation project between Vietnamese NAPAS and Russian NSPK…
Assessing that the two-way payments via banks over the past time have increased but still very limited, especially payments in domestic currencies, the two sides required the commercial banks of the two countries to improve the communication and information to the enterprises about the benefits of payments in the domestic currencies in particular, and payments via banks in general; encourage those banks to actively take part in exchanging information, establishing business relations and continuing to implement banking products and services for payments in the domestic currencies. The two sides also agreed on the plan to implement the future tasks of the two central banks regarding the transactions of VND/RUB in the Moscow Exchange (MOEX), with the aim of supporting the liquidity for payments in the domestic currencies.
Also under the framework of the 16th Meeting of the Vietnam-Russian Inter-Bank Cooperation Working Group, on the afternoon of August 28, Deputy Governor Nguyen Thi Hong and Deputy Governor Skobelkin also co-chaired a Dialogue with the representatives of nearly 30 commercial banks and enterprises of the two sides to discuss about the advantages, difficulties and obstacles in the two-way payments.
This was the first time this event was organized under the framework of the Meeting of the Working Group for the two sides to share and learn about the issues, as well to discuss measures to resolve the obstacles in the two-way payments. The Dialogue was also an opportunity for the commercial banks and enterprises to connect and look for cooperative possibilities in the future. At the Dialogue, the two central banks acknowledged and answered several questions from the commercial banks and enterprises, at the same time, they both asserted to continue to improve this cooperative channel in order to promptly resolve any obstacles and gradually facilitate the commercial payments between Vietnam and Russia.
Le Hang