Optimization of electronic financial transactions

While most financial transactions have been electrolyzed, many places still require people and businesses to produce paper financial documents, resulting in dramatic reductions in efficiency. Photo: S.T.

However, many places still require the people, businesses to produce the financial documents of paper, which has been resulting in reducing the efficiency significantly. The Ministry of Finance is proposing more e-transactions in financial activities more comprehensively, creating more favorable for people and businesses.

Nearly 100% of tax returns and customs via online

According to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Finance, at present, in two areas with the most contact with people and enterprises, the most transactions have been deployed electronically. 118/300 tax administrative procedures were implemented through the online public services in Levels 3 and 4. The Online tax declaration and electronic tax payment services were deployed in 63 of 63 provinces and cities. 99.81% of the total 567,768 operating enterprises across the country participate in the online tax returns. The General Department of Taxation has connected and paid the electronic tax for the 43 commercial banks. 97% of businesses registered to participate in the electronic tax. The Electronic tax refunds have been piloted in 13 provinces and cities. 200 companies in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City use the electronic invoices with the code authentication.

In the field of customs, 100% of the basic customs procedures have been automated nationally to the sub-department levels. The 119/168 customs formalities are implemented through online public services level 3 and 4. 99.7% of import-export enterprises participate in the customs procedures electronically. The Implementation of the national single window mechanism officially connected with 11 ministries, sectors and 38 administrative procedures were implemented (not included in the management procedures of Ministry of Finance). Up to June the 15th, the total of solved administrative records was over 395.9 thousand sets and about 12,300 enterprises participated.

The national single window mechanism of Vietnam has successfully connected with the four ASEAN countries to exchange the Certificate of Origin Form D for exported goods; it is ready to be officially connected when the ASEAN Single Window on the Legal Framework becomes effective.

These e-transaction applications have played an important role in reforming administrative procedures, improving the business environment and enhancing national competitiveness. However, many shortcomings persist.

Revision of the current regulations on e-transactions, the Department of Financial Informatics and Statistics found that the legal documents relating to electronic transactions have been issued for a long time, basically, the legal documents trend as the model, in fact, they are performed under the traditional paper in the electronic environment, not yet bravely exploiting the advantages of electronic methods such as automatic processing and reduction of the manual manipulation and human intervention, For this reason to have limited the effectiveness of implementing e-transactions in financial activities. In addition, while more than 97% of businesses have been involved in the electronic transactions in the field of taxation and customs, thus the other relevant regulators outside the Financial agency still require companies to provide records in order to carry out the tax procedures, paper customs, which leads to enterprises to often have to switch from electronic documents to paper documents, causing troubles for enterprises and reducing the effect of the reform of administrative procedures.

In addition, the electronic transactions are carried out on information systems but the current regulations on information systems are poor for the content, short of specific or no regulations; especially on security aspects, there has not been the accurate guaranty of time for the electronic transactions. There are even some types of vouchers where the time of originating and processing vouchers is bound by specialized regulatory regulations, which can cause disputes between parties involved in electronic transactions.

Electrolyzation of paper vouchers

To overcome these shortcomings, the Ministry of Finance is drafting a replacing decree of the Government's Decree 27/2007 / ND-CP on electronic transactions in financial activities with many huge change proposals. The purpose is to create a legal favorable corridor for the implementation of electronic transactions in financial activities, accelerating the reform of administrative procedures and effectively implementing the single window mechanism; Reduction of the cost burden for enterprises, especially the small and medium enterprises; Improvement of the business environment; Enhancement of the national competitiveness and international integration.

The first content that the Ministry of Finance is to edit the policy group on materialization and expansion of the conditions for accepting the legal validity of the electronic documents to facilitate the deployment and application of the electronic transactions; restricting the need for paper handling is inconvenient for people, businesses. In particular, the amendments to regulations on the acceptance of legal validity of electronic documents with digital signatures shall be digitally signed; adding the acceptance of the legal validity of the digital signature of the organization; The electronic voucher originated and processed by the creditor shall be authenticated in the following ways: Authentication by disposable authentication code or random identification code associated with the originator and Biometric authentication. At the same time, the agency proposed adding a way of converting the paper vouchers into the electronic documents in the form of original images (scanned as PDF or image files) or converting them into data for saving to the system through the use of bar codes or software to identify language or images.

In order to ensure safety in use, the draft of the supplementing decree for the modes of electronic voucher inspection include: connecting and transmitting the electronic voucher information to the inspection agency, providing the account of the information system access to the inspection agency and providing the account of the information query (question / answer) on the electronic voucher to the inspection agency; The query is in the form of a text message within the authority's cell phone numbers. If converting the electronic vouchers into paper vouchers, agencies, organizations and individuals may print the electronic vouchers created and handled by such agencies, organizations or individuals in order to store and collate the information Or to submit to competent agencies for inspection, examination or provision to other agencies, organizations and / or individuals that wish to consult and verify the information within the prescribed scope of law. The Agencies, organizations, and individuals may request the information system owners to certify the implementation of the electronic transactions in the form of papers to present the competent agencies for inspection, examination or to supply to the agencies, organizations and individuals who wish to search and verify information within the scope of the provisions of law. In particular, the regulations without specific or unfeasible content such as encrypted electronic documents; complaints and denunciations; Inspection, inspection; Sealing, seizure, confiscation of electronic documents are all proposed to be removed.

In the policy group on ensuring the security of electronic transactions and improving e-transaction processing capabilities of transaction participants, the regulations are introduced towards the reliability of e-transactions, which promotes the deployment and application of electronic transactions. The chosen solution is to amend and supplement the specific provisions on the reliability and security of the information system of serving e-transactions in financial activities. Specifically: the Information systems of e-transactions in financial activities must be accurate in terms of time; this system must have the ability to convert the electronic documents into paper documents. The information system and the connection within the information systems serving e-transactions must be secured in accordance with the law on the information security. Encouraging the application of information security standards of Vietnam and the world. The connection of exchanging electronic vouchers between the information systems must take measures to ensure the authenticity and the integrity of electronic vouchers. Encouraging the application of digital signatures for the purpose of ensuring the authenticity and integrity of electronic documents.

According to the Ministry of Finance, the changes will increase the transparency, specifically; Increase of economic efficiency for the involved parties in transactions; In line with reality, highly feasible; Facilitating the people and businesses use online financial services of the financial agency; Bringing the real effectiveness to the reform of administrative procedures and the online public services.