On February 19-20, 2020 in Hanoi, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) continued to organize a number of technical meetings within the ASEAN Finance and Banking Cooperation process.
ASEAN Working Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems (WC-PSS) 21th Meeting on February 19-20, 2020
The meeting was attended by representatives of the central banks of the 10 ASEAN member countries and representatives of several international institutions and partners from the private sectors.
During the meeting, the Working Committee focused on discussing and agreeing on its 2020 priority tasks, and updated on the progress of formulating the frameworks for payment activities, including (i) the draft Framework for QR code payments among ASEAN countries as requested by the ASEAN Banks’ Association (ABA). In order to facilitate the research, the ABA há coordinated with the WC-PSS to establish 4 task forces on interconnection standards, payment model/sequences, pricing and business rules, and dispute resolution in order to accelerate the integration of QR code payment systems among the ASEAN countries; (ii) the process of implementing the ASEAN e-Payment Readiness Index led by the ASEAN-USAID Project on ASEAN Inclusive Growth through Innovation, Trade and e-Commerce, which is co-implemented by the WC-PSS and the ASEAN Working Committee on Financial Inclusion (WC-FINC). At the meeting, the participants discussed and agreed on the next implementation steps; (iii) Thailand, the Philippines and the World Bank also shared their experience and made presentations on several activities related to real-time cross-border retail payments in order to serve as “case studies ". These contents, upon being finalized, will be an appendix attached to "A set of guiding principles for the implementation policy" of the "ASEAN Payment Policy Framework for real-time cross-border retail payments".
Moreover, the representative from BTCA also shared information about the Responsible Digital Payment Initiative. The Working Committee then continued to discuss the Terms of Reference for the cooperation between the WC-PSS and the ASEAN Electronic Payment Union under the World Economic Forum.
ASEAN Working Committee on Financial Inclusion (WC-FINC) 9th Meeting on February 20, 2020
The meeting was attended by representatives of the central banks of the 10 ASEAN member countries and representatives of several international institutions.
At the meeting, the Working Committee focused on reviewing the issues arising after the 8th meeting, shared about the process of implementing financial inclusion in the regional countries, and provided updates on the progress and the work plans of the 4 sub-committees preparing for the meeting of the ASEAN Senior Level Committee on Financial Integration (SLC), including the Desired Outcome 1 (DO1) on National Financial Inclusion Strategy; DO2 on Capability Enhancement; DO3 on Digital Finance; DO4 on Financial Inclusion and Customer Protection. Moreover, the Working Committee also provided updates on (i) the progress of compiling the report on Digital Financial Services in ASEAN supported by the World Bank; (ii) the cooperation activities related to financial inclusion by the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI); (iii) the UNCDF’s technical assistance to ASEAN through capability enhancement, development of a data exchange portal, enhancement of the financial inclusion index for women (SHIFT Program - National Financial Inclusion Transfer Program); (iv) the process of implementing the ASEAN e-Payment Readiness Index led by the ASEAN-USAID Project on ASEAN Inclusive Growth through Innovation, Trade and e-Commerce, which is co-implemented by the WC-FINC and the WC-PSS. At the meeting, the SBV also made a presentation on the situation of digital banking operations in Vietnam.
Following these meeting, the SBV would organize other meetings of the ASEAN Finance and Central Bank Deputies' Working Group (AFCDM-WG), the SCCB and the SLC.
Le Hang