At the Smart Banking 2024 Conference and Exhibition jointly organized by the Vietnam Banks Association (VNBA) and IEC Group on October 29, Deputy Governor of the State Bank Pham Tien Dung affirmed that in terms of legal space for digital transformation, the banking industry is very open and has achieved outstanding results.

For example, from opening accounts with eKYC (in 2021) to only allowing opening accounts with chip-embedded citizen ID cards from October 1, 2024, implementing guarantees as well as completely online lending,...

To date, many commercial banks have recorded a transaction rate on digital channels of about 97-98%.

In addition, the banking industry also plays a role in connecting with other industries and sectors in the economy. In the digital transformation process, the industry has connected and integrated with data from the Ministry of Public Security, the telecommunications industry, etc. "Connection and integration are the new and bright spots that the banking industry has achieved," said Mr. Pham Tien Dung.

However, integrating with multiple entities also brings risks related to security and operational disruption.

"Currently, data shows that we have tens of millions of corporate and individual customers. Imagine what would happen if the banking system stopped working for 5 minutes? The impact would certainly be huge. Therefore, after covering a wide range of products and services, we must aim to ensure the operational safety and depth of those products and services. This is the time when banks must pay attention to ensuring the best quality for their products and services," the Deputy Governor emphasized.

Mr. Pham Tien Dung said that after the State Bank implemented Decision 2345 and Circular 17, the number of fraud cases against individual customers has decreased significantly. However, no measure is thorough and perfect.

“The above documents have tightened the opening of personal accounts for individual customers. However, from here, there is a situation of circumventing regulations by opening corporate accounts, bypassing biometric authentication to serve fraudulent purposes,” Mr. Pham Tien Dung stated the current situation.

In the coming time, the banking industry will pay more attention to the opening of business accounts, to ensure the authentication of the legal representative of the business. When conducting business transactions, if the transaction is large, a signature is required to identify the responsible person, ensuring that when a problem occurs, the signer can be traced.

At the workshop, Mr. Nguyen Quoc Hung - Vice Chairman and General Secretary of the Vietnam Banking Association - said that in the first 7 months of 2024, non-cash payment transactions increased by more than 58.4% in quantity and 35.1% in value; via the Internet channel increased by 49.8% and 33.7% respectively; via mobile phone channels increased by 59% and nearly 38% respectively, via QR Code increased by 106.8% in quantity and 105.5% in value compared to the same period in 2023.

Notably, ATM transactions decreased by 13.4% in quantity and 6.13% in value compared to the same period in 2023, showing a trend of people shifting to cashless payments.

“To date, more than 37 million customers have successfully registered their biometric information. This is considered a positive step forward to help reduce risks and protect users from fraud and scams,” said Mr. Nguyen Quoc Hung.

The entire industry has focused on cleaning up 51 million customer data at the Vietnam National Credit Information Center and credit institutions, ensuring 100% of customer data is verified with the national population database.