With the vigorous development of technology in the 4.0 era, Internet Banking had become an indispensable trend for corporate customers. Especially, after the outbreak of Covid 19, the utilities that e-banking had created had changed the usage habit, helping businesses not only to energise in the short term but also towards long-term economic efficiency.
According to the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), in the first four months of 2020, payment via internet increased by 3.2 percent in quantity and 45.7 percent in value compared to the same period in 2019. Notably, during the past outbreak of COVID-19, about 15 million people used electronic banking in a month, with about 30 million transactions daily.
A vital contribution to these indicators was the increased use of e-banking services by corporate customers.
Accordingly, the number of customers registering for Internet Banking service climbed in the small and medium customer segment, with the estimated increase of more than 10 percent per month compared to 2019.
Great benefits for the business
Through a survey of many businesses using electronic banking, most of the opinions said that utilities and incentives were essential factors when choosing which bank’s services.
Ms Viet Anh, a salaried accountant for a corporation in Dong Da district (Hanoi), shared, since the time she used Internet Banking for her business, her work had become leisured because she had cut a lot of steps in the old process, such as signing a payment authorisation, waiting for approval to going to a bank and making a transaction.
The first salary transfer using Vietnam Maritime Joint Stock Commercial Bank (MSB) Electronic Banking, Viet Anh had felt the high value of technology. With just a few simple clicks, she had successfully transferred the salaries to more than 3,000 employees in minutes, very quickly. Until then, her company had reduced the time considerably, costs and workforce for this job, Viet Anh added.
Also using Internet Banking of MSB, Thanh Hai, accountant of a trading company, assessed that the use of electronic banking was necessary because the number of partners of the company was large so he had to come to the counter many times. With the support of technology, he could transfer money 24/7 quickly to other units at any banks in just a few minutes, regardless of Saturday or Sunday. Besides, the company could get an authentication bank book with a digital signature in only 10 seconds.
In fact, the cash flow of businesses would be much safer and faster as they could transfer money to one or more accounts at the same time for many different purposes such as payment of electricity and water bills, telecommunications, trains, port services, subsidies to partners, or bank payables such as loans.
Business owners would also easily monitor and manage their business finance anywhere or on any internet-connected device.
On the other hand, the assurance of security and confidentiality in transactions was also a key factor for businesses to use the service.
Huynh Sang, a Chief Finance Officer (CFO), highly appreciated MSB’s ability to specialise in profound decentralisation. Using MSB electronic banking, he said that the remarkable point was the diverse authentication method, decentralising up to five levels of approval. This created safety and contributed to optimal internal management, Sang assessed.
Outstanding offers
Besides the secure management of revenues and expenditures, businesses would also save maximum transaction costs through electronic banking. Many companies believed that this was a mandatory and necessary direction to increase economic efficiency and long-term benefits for businesses themselves.
Therefore, more and more businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, were choosing to take advantage of the utilities and incentives from banks’ e-banking services.
The typical example was the case of MSB with the Zero+ super account promotion programme. Accordingly, when registering this account package and activating Internet Banking, businesses would enjoy a series of attractive ‘four no’ benefits, including zero dong (free online money transfer and the annual fee of online banking service in the first year); zero preferential limits (free service, online payroll payment fee, online batch payment fee, electronic and customs tax payment transaction fee, etc.); zero distance (free money transfer to all banks); zero waiting (no need to go to the counter, no waste of time, 24/7 money transfers anytime including Saturday and Sunday).
The incentives in particular and the use of e-banking, in general, were effective solutions for businesses, helping the unit to reduce costs and increase operational efficiency.
Grasping this trend, the application of information technology was the method that banks paid attention to, which was also the keyword of positioning the bank in the hearts of users.
