16.6 million bank accounts have facial authentication

On the morning of July 4, at the workshop "Solutions to protect customers using banking services", Deputy Governor of the State Bank Pham Tien Dung admitted that the situation of not being able to transfer money on the first day of implementing biometric authentication was real, but it was gradually resolved in the following days. And so far, it has basically stabilized and gone smoothly. Customers without a chip-embedded citizen identification card have been guided and supported by the bank when making transactions over 10 million VND.

According to Mr. Dung, biometric authentication is necessary, adding an extra layer of protection so it is definitely safer. In case a customer loses their documents or is taken to a fake bank to defraud money, it is difficult to do because there is facial biometrics to confirm whether the customer is the owner or not.

"Biometric authentication adds another layer of protection. The bank does not skip any security steps, so it is only safer for customers. High-tech crime is becoming more sophisticated and I fully believe that technology must constantly improve to better protect customers' assets," the Deputy Governor emphasized.

Mr. Pham Tien Dung - Deputy Governor of the State Bank added that as of 5:00 p.m. on July 3, 16.6 million bank accounts had been checked and compared with data from the Ministry of Public Security to eliminate fake accounts that were not owned by the owner, created with fake documents, etc.

"This number is equal to a whole year of the banking industry opening accounts for customers. In the past 30 years, we have opened 170 million accounts, and yesterday alone, we cleared 16.6 million accounts. The largest bank has verified about 2.6 million customers. On July 1 alone, some banks increased the number of verified accounts by 10-20 times compared to normal days," said Mr. Dung.

Mr. Dung also shared that on the first day of Decision No. 2345 on implementing safety and security solutions in online payments and bank card payments taking effect (July 1, 2024), the number of transactions at banks increased by 10-20 times compared to normal days, leading to congestion at some banks. However, on July 2-3, basic transactions were smooth.

The Deputy Governor also added that on average, there are about 2 million transactions over 10 million VND per day on the interbank money transfer system. Currently, 90% of banking transactions are on the internet. Therefore, collecting biometrics when opening a bank account plays a role in cleaning up the bank account, avoiding the use of fake documents to open a bank account or opening an account with real documents but the person opening the account is not the person on the document.

Mr. Dung affirmed that eliminating unregistered bank accounts is the first step of Decision No. 2345, contributing to reducing fraud in cyberspace.

"The banking system is linked to the data of the Ministry of Public Security. When opening a bank account, data will be retrieved from the Ministry of Public Security. Comparing the face of the account opener with the face stored in the citizen identification card (CCCD) will immediately determine whether the account opener is the owner or not," the Deputy Governor further explained about the biometric authentication process of banks.

The State Bank's leaders said that in the coming time, the State Bank will continue to coordinate with the Ministry of Public Security, focusing on exploiting information on chip-embedded ID cards and VneID accounts to accurately identify and authenticate customer information.

Warning about exploiting biometric installation support for fraud

In the context of the increasing demand for biometric registration among people, recently, banks have simultaneously issued warnings about the use of biometric installation support for fraud and advised customers to be more vigilant. Specifically, BIDV Bank recommends that customers only update biometric data in one of two ways: On the customer's BIDV SmartBanking or directly at BIDV branches/transaction points nationwide. Absolutely do not update biometric data via any other website or application.

At the same time, do not provide OTP, password, card number, security code, personal information, bank account information, citizen ID photo, face photo to anyone, including bank staff. Be absolutely vigilant and do not access strange links via Chat, SMS or Email sent to your phone to download and install applications that support biometric collection on your phone.

Similarly, Vietcombank also said that in the initial implementation phase, taking advantage of the situation where some customers had difficulty updating their biometric information, scammers impersonated bank employees to contact customers in order to appropriate bank account information. Vietcombank affirmed that it did not ask customers to provide personal information through channels such as phone calls, SMS, email, chat software (Zalo, Viber, Facebook Messenger...).

"Customers absolutely must not click on links, do not provide account security information, digital banking services (login name, password, OTP code), card services (card number, OTP code), account information or any other banking service security information, personal information. Customers must not share personal information, banking service information, banking transaction information... on social networks to avoid being exploited by scammers," Vietcombank warned.

Banks said that normally, bad guys will contact customers by calling, texting, making friends through social networks (Zalo, Facebook...) to guide them in collecting biometric information.

Or ask customers to provide personal information, bank account information, citizen identification image, customer face image for support. The subject can request a video call to collect more voice and gestures.

Bad guys can also ask people to access strange links to download and install applications that support biometric collection on their phones.

Create confusing nicknames such as "Bank staff", "Customer support"... and interact under posts on the bank's official social networking site to ask customers to contact privately (inbox) to lure and scam.

After obtaining the victims' information, the subjects proceeded to appropriate money in bank accounts and use customers' information for bad purposes.