On July 10, 2025, at the headquarters of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), Deputy Governor Pham Thanh Ha had a meeting with a senior mission from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT). Also attending the meeting, there were leaders and representatives of several SBV entities.
The SWIFT mission was led by Mr. Kevin Wong, Managing Director and Head of Asia Pacific at SWIFT. The meeting was aimed at updating both sides on the areas of mutual interest in the banking sector, including: ensuring the security and safety in international payments; foreign exchange reserve management; transition to ISO 20022 standard for payments; the digital transformation in the banking sector; Sibos 2025; and other topics.
Mr. Kevin Wong, Managing Director and Head of Asia Pacific at SWIFT, speaks at the meeting
As a user of the SWIFT system, the Foreign Exchange Management Department has implemented multiple international payment operations, including: transferring foreign currencies between the SBV’s accounts abroad, transferring at the request of the credit institutions (CIs), the foreign bank branches, and other operations. The use of SWIFT helps ensure accurate, safe and secure international payments, meeting the requirements in the foreign exchange reserve management for the credit institutions.
It is critical to ensure the security of the payment system via SWIFT in the context of rapid technological development with more and more potential cyber risks. To enhance the security, SWIFT has made a number of recommendations, including updating the SWIFT Alliance software; applying two-factor authentication, firewalls, strong encryption; etc. Accordingly, the SBV has fully implemented the security procedures and regulations in accordance with the Customer Security Program (CSP), and the SBV has been sending its CSP compliance reports on an annual basis to SWIFT.
Deputy Governor Pham Thanh Ha takes a photo with the mission from SWIFT
The SBV has tested sending and receiving in parallel two SWIFT message types, including: the old message type (MT) and the new message type with ISO 20022 standard (MX) with international partners. Until now, the SBV Foreign Exchange Management Department has successfully tested the MX standard with a number of major partners, including Fed, the BIS, the central banks of France and Germany, Clearstream,….
Based on the transition plan for ISO 20022 standard to be applied from November 2025, the SBV Information Technology Department has proposed a conversion tool between the SWIFT IM software and the SWIFT application. The transition plan covers two phases: (i) From October 2024 to June 2025; and (ii) From June 2025 to September 2025.
DL