With Vietnam currently being home to 70 credit institutions along with payment intermediaries such as e-wallets which provide financial services through the Internet and mobile phones, experts in the field have underlined the need to complete the legal corridor to promote the development of digital banking in the future.
Statistics indicate that the value of financial transactions has reached over VND7 million billion via the Internet and approximately VND300,000 billion through mobile phones. These figures show that the transaction volume remains small in comparison to the overall size of the economy.
Among economies throughout Southeast Asia, Vietnam enjoys advantages in terms of developing a digital economy due to a relatively strong digital infrastructure when compared to other economies regionally. There also exists plenty of advantages in order to transform the digital economy into a digital space, therefore promoting digitalisation among businesses.
Within the banking sector, in contrast to the traditional banking model, digital banks and e-wallets have several differences and competitive advantages due to all communication channels with customers being conducted online through mobile platforms with a rich, intuitive, and cohesive interface, serving to create greater customer engagement.
Despite the nation making progress to build a legal corridor for digital payment services, there remains paperwork obstacles amid the current system of documents which has ultimately served to impede digital payments from expanding in a rapid manner.
Nguyen Tri Hieu, a financial expert, emphasized that it is essential to first develop a standard legal framework without moving into areas that are not fully controlled.
According to Pham Tien Dung, head of the Payment Department of the State Bank, the country has a form of legal framework suitable for digital payments but the question remains on how to develop new models.
Moreover, it is considered necessary to complete the digital technology infrastructure system with a focus being placed on building and refining the technology infrastructure within the banking industry, whilst also strengthening applications used by the banking industry with other service sectors as a means of expanding the digital ecosystem.
Dung also stressed the necessity of building a national database for the population that protects user data and transactional security, a factor that is critically important for digital banking development.
