Commercial banks invest VND 15,000 billion in digital transformation

	The State Treasury expands budget collection coordination, creating the most favorable conditions for businesses and people
	Commercial banks invest nearly 630 million USD in digital transformation: SBV

QR code payment is becoming more and more popular. Photo: Internet

According to data from the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), as of June 2023, the average amount of money transfer payment transactions increased by 52.35% compared to 2022. Payments through POS, QR code, internet and Mobile Banking increased in both value and quantity. Meanwhile, the amount of cash withdrawal via ATM decreased by about 6.3%.

In addition, about fourty banks have opened payment accounts for customers with about 11 million accounts via eKYC method; About 20 banks opened card payment accounts for customers through eKYC with the amount of 10.8 million.

The Government has also requested to connect and share the population database, there are about 25 million customer accounts have integrated residential data after the Ministry of Public Security and the State Bank of Vietnam signed an agreement that agreed on the implementation of the integration of residential data with bank accounts.

At a seminar related to ensuring security and safety for electronic payments organized by the Financial and Monetary Market Magazine under the direction of the Vietnam Banks Association (VNBA) recently, Mr Nguyen Quoc Hung, VNBA Vice President and General Secretary commented that with the above results, argument transfer plays a very important and practical role for banks. Banking is also one of the leading industries with the investment of commercial banks with an investment of VND 15,000 billion for digital transformation.

Mr. Van Anh Tuan, Senior Director of Information Security, Techcombank said that this bank alone has invested 300 million USD in digital transformation in technology and people. According to Mr. Tuan, with the motto of taking customers as the focus, banks need to focus on digital applications to meet the increasing needs of customers, thereby achieving enormous benefits.

According to Ms. Winnie Wong, Country Manager of Mastercard in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, digital transformation in the banking sector is happening faster than many other countries in the region. Banks and financial institutions in Vietnam have been very proactive in ensuring they keep up with trends and technologies. At least 95% of banks in Vietnam are actively implementing digital transformation.

This is largely due to the strong support from the Vietnamese Government, especially the State Bank, which has been very proactive and created a good environment for banks to operate and develop, experts said. On the other hand, Vietnamese consumers are very responsive and receptive to digital transformation.

Mastercard representative said that this trend is even more popular in Vietnam than in the rest of the Asia-Pacific region. In a study by Mastercard in 2022, 94% of Vietnamese consumers used at least one digital payment method in the past year. In the Asia Pacific region and even more developed countries, this rate is only 88%.

According to Mr. Pham Anh Tuan, Director of the Payment Department (SBV), many credit institutions have achieved the number of transactions on digital channels up to 90%, helping to reduce many costs compared to making traditional transactions. At the same time, promoting the use of digital services helps people avoid illegal money transfer services, loan sharks, etc.

However, over the past time, the situation of payment safety, especially the risk of fraud in electronic payments has also increased sharply and has many complicated and unpredictable developments.

Mr. Nguyen Quoc Hung said that in any service field, no matter how modern, crooks still find all kinds of ways to discover loopholes to take advantage of, thereby taking over customers' assets. A typical case is that a customer accidentally provides personal information such as citizen identification, card number, account number, password, OTP code or payment code... when joining a social network, using internet, online shopping...

In addition, there is a phenomenon that crooks take advantage of sim upgrades, upgrade internet packages on sims to capture phone numbers, thereby appropriating bank account passwords. Another common case is that crooks use fake messages, send malicious links/brandnames to cheat, take money from customers' accounts...

The director of the Payment Department stated that the reason for the above situation is that the legal corridor has not kept pace with the progress of science and technology, and crime has increased at a high level, so the banking industry as well as other ministries and branches in Over the past time, very drastic measures have been taken to prevent it, but it has not been able to keep up. Along with that is the incompatibility of infrastructure, habits and ignorance of the people.

Therefore, in the face of these problems, experts and banks all emphasize that when implementing digital transformation, not only financial institutions but the whole country need to join hands to protect financial transactions, ensure all transactions are safe and secure.