Approach the Technological revolution 4.0: The financial sector improves its operational efficiency

Customs supervision at the T2 Terminal – Da Nang International Airport Customs Branch. Photo: Ngoc Linh.

Many positive results

Some of the results include: Applying virtualization technology to optimize hardware investments; deployment of large data analysis technology; initially implement the application of social networking technology, mobile technology in the provision of online public services, electronic taxation system, e-customs, automatic customs management system at seaport, the National One-stop-shop (OSS) and ASEAN One-stop-shop.

In fact, the above solutions have achieved many positive effects. For example, in the field of Customs, the core administrative procedures are provided by the online public services level 4 through the VNACCS/VCIS system. The other administrative procedures are also provided by the General Department of Customs on the Vietnam National Single Window, the Customs Electronic Portal, the Electronic Payment Gateway, raising the number of administrative procedures, which are provided by the online public services to at least level 3 to 170/180 administrative procedures (of which 161 administrative procedures are carried out at level 4)

On the implementation of the National OSS mechanism, as of June 20, 2018, 11 ministries, including the Ministry of Finance, have implemented 53 administrative procedures on the National OSS, handling about 1.3 million records of 22,200 enterprises. From 1/1/2018, Vietnam has officially exchanged the information of electronic C/O form D with 4 ASEAN countries (Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand) through the ASEAN OSS. As of May 15, 2018, the total number of C/O that Vietnam received from the four countries was 25,850 C/O; The total number of C/O that Vietnam sent to 4 countries was 12,849 C/O.

The automatic customs management at seaports and airports has been successfully deployed at 4 Customs Departments in provinces and cities (Hai Phong, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Ba Ria - Vung Tau), handling more than 30 million in-packages; and nearly 24 million out-packages. Customs offices have also connected with IT systems of commercial banks and the State treasuries to conduct e-payments. Up to now, the revenue through e-payments has accounted for more than 90% of the revenue collected by the General Department of Customs.

Particularly, nowadays, Customs offices has deployed the Tax payment project – Customs clearance 24/7 through the connection with 16 commercial banks, helping businesses to pay taxes at anytime, anywhere and by all means; ensuring that tax payment information is promptly and accurately paid; reducing the time for tax payment and at the same time, clear the goods immediately after paying tax. Previously, it took from 1-2days, even 5 days in some cases, now it takes only 3 minutes.

In the field of taxation, the Electronic tax declaration system has been implemented in 63/63 provinces and cities and 100% of tax departments. As of June, 2018, 99.94% of enterprises operating in the country use electronic tax declaration services; the number of e-tax records was over 52.2 million.

The General Department of Taxation is also coordinating with 47 commercial banks and 63 tax departments to implement the electronic tax payment service. Up to June 2018, the number of enterprises reached 97.98%; the number of enterprises having completed registration procedures with banks accounted for 96.02% of total operating enterprises; The amount paid to the State budget from 1/1/2018 reached over 264,602 billion VND with 1,662,495 electronic tax transactions.

The electronic tax refund is the same. From January 1, 2018 to June 2018, the total number of enterprises participating in the electronic tax refund was 90.04%; The number of dossiers received was 8,481 out of 9,143 dossiers, accounting for 92.86%; The total number of dossiers that the system has been refunded was 6,068 with the total refunded amount of more than 29,627 billion VND. Along with that, the tax office also develops and implements a system of issuing electronic invoices with authentication; implementing electronic tax declaration and payment services, individual households renting houses; carrying out the e-service of paying registration fee for cars, motorbikes.

The above solutions not only bring benefits to the financial management of the sector, but also bring remarkable results for the whole society, helping the Finance sector to establish the basic foundation to be ready and active in deploying technology application of the technological revolution 4.0.

Develop a comprehensive financial strategy

Recently, the Secretary of the Party Committee of the Ministry of Finance has signed the Resolution No.02-NQ/BCSD on application of the technological revolution 4.0 in the field of finance – budget, which sets the specific targets by 2025. Specifically: Complete the Comprehensive Financial Strategy, which emphasizes the role of IT application and strategy of each sector in the industry that is consistent with the direction of digital economy development; Formulate mechanisms and policies on tax and finance to ensure synchronism, publicity, transparency, stability and suitability with practical requirements in order to encourage enterprises to invest in technological renewal activities, research and development, investment in IT business and other advanced technologies, and create new revenues from the digital economy.

In addition, complete the objectives of e-Government, enhance administrative reform, simplify the administrative procedures in taxation and customs in order to further improve the competitive environment, promote the development of enterprises, facilitate enterprises to quickly absorb and develop new production technologies. To step by step apply the new technology of the technological revolution 4.0 into the areas of the financial sector in the direction of user-centric. To formulate the digital financial ecosystem on the basis of open data of the financial sector, facilitating people, enterprises and agencies to easily and equally access the information of the financial sector.

In particular, improve the electronic working environment in the industry in the direction of integrating and sharing data, streamlining and automating internal processes, providing the ability to look up information and process the work on mobile devices, toward a paperless office; Finalize the Infrastructure Finance Cloud; Plan and transition gradually the applications to the cloud environment; set up a system of comprehensive and uniform information security management in line with the phases of the digital transformation of financial sectors, compliance with Vietnam's regulations and international standards on information safety.

At present, the Ministry of Finance is hiring domestic and foreign consultants to build e-Government Architecture, directed to the digital Government of the Ministry of Finance. The e-Government architecture of the Ministry of Finance plays a role in guiding the deployment of a close IT integration framework, ensuring an appropriate approach to the effective, economical management and use of IT resources. And the criteria that the Finance sector is aiming at are: Avoid the application of IT in a fragmented way to meet the urgent demand on operational support of each agency or unit; enhance the overall performance of the Financial sector through sharing data; Identify opportunities to support the development of digital government connections and achieve greater efficiency in policy formulation and implementation of IT application plans to support the professional operations of the whole Finance Sector in Vietnam .