To develop digital economy, promoting cashless payment is a mandatory requirement. However, this policy is coping with obstacles by new regulations.
In the recent socio-economic discussion session, delegate Tran Quang Chieu, a member of the National Assembly’s Finance and Budget Committee, proposed solutions to carry out the fiscal and monetary policy. He said that the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) reviewed some regulations on payment, specifically the draft amendment and supplement of Circular 39/2014/ TT-NHNN on payment intermediation and Circular 43/2016/ TT-NHNN on consumer lending.
For example, in the draft amendments and supplements to a number of articles of Circular 43/2016, SBV restricts companies to directly disburse loans to borrowers, leading to concerns about reducing efficiency of preventive measures to repel the “shadow banking” of the government. In particular, financial companies are only allowed to disburse at maximum 30 percent of total outstanding loans. This is a major disadvantage for consumer finance companies, as cash lending is considered the most important business.
Or in the amended and supplemented Circular No. 39/2014, SBV introduces restrictions on disbursement methods of financial companies, limiting users to open only one e-wallet at one service provider, not trading more than 20 million dong per day and not exceeding 100 million dong a month.
According to Chieu, these contents, if they are issued, will hinder the development of digital economy and cashless paymentsone of the guidelines being promoted by the government.
On the other hand, the promotion of cashless payment, according to the speech of delegate Bui Thi Quynh Tho, member of the Economic Committee of the National Assembly, also contribute to solving the situation of loss of personal income tax in Vietnam’s cash-friendly economy today.
In addition to regulating the maximum level of transactions, SBV also recommends that e-wallet businesses must identify themselves by requiring customers to submit proofs, even if they have a linked bank account. According to SBV, identification is necessary to ensure the safety of electronic payments, to avoid e-wallet being taken advantage by illegal activities. However, e-wallet businesses express concern that this provision not only makes it difficult for customers, but also put pressure on banks when requesting e-wallet accounts to provide information within six months to perform authentication from the date of issuance.
SBV statistics show that there are currently more than nine million registered e-wallet accounts nationwide, of which 4.2 million have linked bank accounts. Experts estimate that the minimum cost incurred to carry out SBV’s nominal requirement is more than 1.2 trillion dong.
Proposed solutions, many experts believe that, instead of requiring customers to re-declare, there should be an authentication mechanism between the units providing e-wallet and banking services for the convenience of users. Accordingly, SBV should consider the plan to allow the inter-bank mechanism with e-wallet providers, in which after confirming the account holder, the banks will share this information and e-wallet provide do not to re-validate, limiting the time and cost of the parties.
The banks’ leaders said that with about five million active e-wallet accounts at the moment, the requirement to re-name creates great pressure for the banks. Currently, service providers and management agencies have sufficient tools and measures to verify information if needed.
Specifically, to use e-wallets, customers must always have a phone number and bank account number. In order to open a bank account, customers must provide identification information according to the provisions of Circular No. 23/2014/ TT-NHNN; to register mobile subscribers, the subscriber must also provide personal identification information according to Article 15Decree No. 25/2011/ ND-CP.
Therefore, in case of need to verify information of customers, service providers and management agencies can completely retrieve data from the above sources; it is not necessary to require customers to perform the procedures many times when opening e-wallet.
