With the spirit of putting the people at the center, the banking industry has achieved encouraging results in the digital transformation, especially in improving the institutional and legal frameworks, developing the technological infrastructure, promoting the banking services and ensuring the safety and security. At the same time, the banking sector has been considered as one of sectors at the forefront in terms of the national digital transformation.
The banking industry in the forefront in the digital transformation
In his opening speech at the High-level Forum themed “Banking sector proactively leads in Industry 4.0”, which was co-organized on October 11, 2022 in Hanoi by the Central Economic Commission and the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), Mr. Tran Tuan Anh, Chairman of the Central Economic Commission, assessed that the SBV leadership and the whole banking sector have proactively implemented the tasks and participated in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0), and conducted robustly the digital transformation, thereby the banking sector has achieved a lot of encouraging results. It was the first sector to initiate a Digital Transformation Day, and to promulgate the Plan for Digital Transformation by 2025, Vision to 2030. In 2021, according to a McKinsey’s assessment, Vietnam’s level of application of digital banking was growing fastest in the region.
Speaking at the Forum, SBV Deputy Governor Nguyen Kim Anh shared that, with the spirit of putting the people at the center, the banking industry has achieved encouraging results in the digital transformation, especially in improving the institutional and legal frameworks, developing the technological infrastructure, promoting the banking services and ensuring the safety and security. At the same time, the banking sector has been considered as one of sectors at the forefront in terms of the national digital transformation.
SBV Deputy Governor Nguyen Kim Anh speaks at the Forum
For example, there are currently many banking services which can be done completely on digital channels; a number of commercial banks have over 90% of transactions via digital channels; the common technologies of Industry 4.0 like AI, machine learning, Big Data, etc. have been applied in many Vietnamese banks to improve the operational performance, analyze the customers’ demands, expand the digital ecosystem and bring about outstanding services with affordable costs to the people.
The average growth rate of mobile payment transactions has reached over 90% per annum, especially during the COVID-19 period, with significantly increased demands for payment transactions on the digital channels, the technology and the payment infrastructure of the banking sector could still ensure smooth and safe operations. This has reflected that the banking industry has proactively invested and developed the infrastructure to catch up with the fast growth of the market and to fully meet the demands and expectations of the people.
Digital transformation in a systematic, consistent and targeted manner
Beside the encouraging results, the SBV Deputy Governor went on to stress that, the banking industry has been facing many challenges, such as the issue of how to ensure effective investment, frequent and continuous changes in customers’ demands and tastes, the trends of high-tech crimes with increasingly sophisticated tricks. Therefore, the banking industry needs to implement the digital transformation in a systematic, consistent and targeted manner, with a clear and specific roadmap.
According to Mr. Le Anh Dzung, Deputy Director General in charge of the Payment Department, in order to support the digital transformation of the banking industry, the SBV suggests to accelerate the finalization of the standards for the connection with the National Database on Population, the Database on Citizen Identifications, allowing sharing and open connection with the service industries such as banking, telecommunications, insurance, etc., in order to support the electronic Know Your Customer (eKYC), thereby increasing the accuracy of customer identification and authentication. At the same time, the SBV would also recommend to amend the 2005 Law on Electronic Transactions in order to create a consistent legal basis for the Ministries and agencies to carry out their digital transformation, facilitating electronic transactions and improving the public confidence in electronic transactions.
Le Hang