SBV held conference "Fintech – the trend of development and recommendations"

The conference was attended by Ms Lesly Goh, Director of Financial Services Industry, Microsoft Asia Pacific; members of SBV Steering Committee on Fintech; and representatives from SBV entities including Payment Department, Banking Supervision Agency, Information Technology Department, Banking Strategy Institute, Banking Academy and Banking Training School.

Managing efficiently Fintech companies is the global concerned. Currently, there are more than 40 Fintech companies operating in Vietnam to provide a range of financial services such as payment, money transfer, capital mobilization and financial management. The supplementation and completion of the legal framework and the formulation of proper management mechanism of Fintech field, therefore, are necessary to serve the target of economic development and to meet the increasing demand of the users in Vietnam.

Delivering the opening speech, SBV Deputy Governor Nguyen Kim Anh stated in the context of industrial revolution 4.0, the strong development of Fintech companies all over the world and in Vietnam is creating more favorable access to the banking- financial services, adding more value for customers in using the services. Being developed on the basis of information technology and telecommunication without needing a network of branchs and offices, the services and products provided by Fintech companies have been attracted a huge number of customers, especially people in the rural, remote areas and islands who are facing difficulties to access banking services.

The overview of the conference

Over the past years, the SBV has been proactively collaborating with Fintech enterprises to promptly remove difficulties in order to facilitate their operations. Specifically, since 2008, the SBV has researched and permitted non-banking companies to provide pilot payment services. Up to now, after formulating the relatively transparent legal framework, the SBV has granted licences to 20 intermediary payment providers. Apart from Fintech types in payment sector, there are also startup enterprises providing other services such as capital mobilization, online lending, money transfer, and personal financial data management in Vietnam.

Deputy Governor Nguyen Kim Anh emphasized that Fintech is a potential sector in Vietnam in terms of population scale and comparative advantages in human resources in the field of information technology field. The regulatory legal framework of Vietnam has been able to partly meet the management demand of financial technology applied in payment sector. The legal framework for management of other financial sectors is still incomplete and unsynchronous. In the context that the regional and global countries have different access to supporting and promoting the development of Fintech businesses, the SBV Governor issued Decision No.328/QD-NHNN dated March 16, 2017 on establishing the Steering Committee on Fintech of the SBV. Accordingly, the Steering Committee submit to Governor the proposal on formulating the appropriate regulatory mechanism, the improvement of the legal framework, thereby facilitating Fintech businesses of Vietnam, concurrently to build up the strategy and plan on developing Fintech in Vietnam in accordance with the orientations of the Government.

Ms Lesly Goh – Director of Financial Services Industry, Microsoft Asia Pacific at the meeting

At the conference, Ms. Lesly Goh, Director of Financial Services Industry, Microsoft Asia Pacific introduced current features and global trend of Fintech; Several modern technologies are being applied in banking sector; the cooperation between Fintech businesses and banks. Ms Lesly Goh also shared the challenges to the management agencies in regulating operation of those companies; concurrently she proposed several recommendations to the SBV in the progress of implementing further steps to manage Fintech operations in the coming time.

Giang Nguyen