The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) would focus on developing mechanisms, policies, and promulgating regulations to create a favourable environment for banks and intermediaries to pay for innovation and robust application of the 4.0 technical achievements into banking operations.
Recently, Nam A Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Nam A Bank) had officially launched a digital transaction space integrated with the modern equipment ecosystem, especially the application of artificial intelligence (AI). This ecosystem was combined with the application channel on Nam A Bank’s Open Banking platform. Nam A Bank also launched Robot OPBA and became a pioneer Vietnamese bank to bring robots to serve customers. OPBA robot had the ability to recognise customers’ faces with the modern Face ID feature, proactively greeting customer support, etc. That was quite a surprising event because at the top of the race to transform digital banks for a long time, Nam A Bank was not listed. That was why in this race, there would be many surprises ahead.
Moreover, the Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV) had just officially launched the Digital Banking centre marking an important step in its development strategy and vision to 2030. The Digital Banking centre was born to become BIDV’s Creative Centre, which produced advanced and state-of-the-art products for customers and tested new business models based on technology. BIDV leaders said that technology and digital banking were one of the three main pillars of BIDV in the further development period. As a confirmation of this, BIDV and Ernst & Young had officially signed a consultancy contract to build a strategy to deploy the BIDV digitisation period 2019 to 2025, 2030 vision.
Being not ostentatious by launching or investment signing ceremony, last week, Vietnam Technological and Commercial Joint-Stock Bank (Techcombank) also sent an important message to the market. Vishal Shah, the director of Corporate Banking Division, said that Techcombank’s goal was to make banking services more straightforward and more effective for customers, thereby enabling them to improve productivity and business efficiency. Techcombank strived to bring the best solutions to its customers through continuing to upgrade features on the online banking platformFEB.
Beginning in February 2020, small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) customers using Techcombank’s digital banking solutions would enjoy preferential treatment. Techcombank aimed to continue simplifying and digitising key processes to improve service quality and increase customer benefits. For example, the digitisation process of the M + project (personal home loan application) had shortened the processing time on the system to just over 200 minutes. The total operating time of a single account for successful loans could only take three to four days, and customers could actively access and manage their loan records.
In the race to develop digital banking, each commercial bank had its own solutions and goals. However, when exchanging with reporters, all leaders of commercial banks had the same message. They aimed to provide customers with superior banking experience in speed, convenience and efficiency through digitisation, in line with the government’s guidelines on reducing cash transactions nationwide. The BIDV Chair, Phan Duc Tu, said that Digital transformation required the will, the determination, perseverance, and the courage of all people to discard the old and create their own. BIDV defined the practical goal as first, taking modern technology as a breakthrough, customer-centric and human resources as the core.
Regarding the SBV’s orientation for digital banking development and the application of digital technology in banking operations, deputy Governor Nguyen Kim Anh said that in the near future, the SBV would continue to direct the upgrading and completion of the banking system, payment floor, issuing standards for QR code payment, enhancing connectivity, handling communication between payment service providers, payment intermediaries and creating linkages and integration between banks and other industries.
SBV was researching the application of new technologies in banking activities, such as data sharing (API, cloud computing), centralised payment infrastructure. SBV would focus on developing mechanisms, policies and promulgating regulations to create a favourable environment for banks and intermediaries to pay for innovation and robust application of the 4.0 technical achievements into banking operations.
