On July 6, 2018, at the headquarters of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), a workshop on "Sharing experience in implementing Open APIs, Blockchain and Fintech" was organized by the SBV in cooperation with Japanese NTT Data Corporation.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Mr. Pham Tien Dung - Director General of the Payment Department of the SBV said, the fourth industrial revolution (IR 4.0), which has been strongly affecting the financial service industry in many countries around the world, as well as the application of technology in financial services (a.k.a. Fintech), which is now a strong development trend in the banking industry, have helped commercial banks improve their operational efficiency, increase revenues and reduce costs; at the same time, this trend has also made it more convenient for customers with a better user experience and reasonable costs. In addition, thanks to the advantages of low expenses, a wide coverage of the digital technology, Fintech also opens up more opportunities to increase accessibility to banking services for customers in the rural, remote and mountainous areas, customers who do not have bank accounts; contributing to the promotion of Financial Inclusion in Vietnam. Therefore, the commercial banks in Vietnam are very much interested in researching, investing in new technologies, and innovative solutions of Fintech, in order to improve the efficiency of their operations, increase the quality of customer services, in line with the general trends of banks and financial institutions in the world.
Mr. Pham Tien Dung - Director General of the Payment Department of the SBV speaks at the Workshop
With the potentials and positive impacts of Fintech in renovating the banking services and boosting the country's Financial Inclusion, the SBV has set up a Fintech Steering Committee, which is currently focusing on 5 key areas of Fintech, including: Payment, Blockchain Technology, Open Application Programming Interface (OpenAPI), electronic Know Your Customer (eKYC) and Peer-to-peer lending (P2P Lending). Hence, the Committee will advise and propose to the SBV Governor measures to fine-tune the legal framework, making favorable conditions for the development of Fintech businesses in Vietnam.
A representative of Japanese NTT Data Corporation presented and shared NTT Data’s experience in deploying a number of new tech solutions and solutions linked with the application of financial technologies. From NTT Data's experience with Open APIs in Japan, the participating experts discussed and analyzed the applicability and possibility of a performance test run (Proof of concept – PoC) in Vietnam.
In the discussion, the participants from the SBV’s Payment Department, the Department of Information Technology, Vietnam Fintech Club and several commercial banks raised some questions and concerns emerged from the research and development of Fintech services. The NTT Data representative shared NTT Data’s experience from similar situations that have taken place in Japan.
In the conclusion, Mr. Pham Tien Dung, Director General of the SBV’s Payment Department, highly appreciated the practicality of the shared contents at the workshop for the development of Fintech and banking operations in Vietnam. Mr. Dung hoped that from the workshop, the relevant departments of the SBV, the members of the Fintech Steering Committee and the commercial banks would have a better understanding about the practical situations, the trend of technology applications in real life.
VA