Annual SWIFT User Group Meeting Opens in Vietnam

The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) recently hosted the SWIFT User Group Meeting in Hanoi.

 

Pham Bao Lam, Director of SBV Exchange and President of VIETSWIFT, said that SWIFT Vietnam was established in 1996, after the first six banks in Vietnam, namely the SBV, Vietcombank, BIDV, Agribank, Vietinbank, and Eximbank, became members of SWIFT in March 1995. Since then, many other institutions have joined the SWIFT community. At present, the SBV and about 80 commercial banks had since joined in SWIFT Vietnam with 88 SWIFT codes. Of this figure, 44 were SWIFT codes of joint stock banks and 43 others from foreign banks and overseas branches.

 

According to statistics from SWIFT, Vietnam ranked 63rd out of 212 countries in the volume of money transfer messages a day, with a daily volume of 15,000 messages, representing a growth rate of nearly 13 per cent a year. The data indicated a relatively good growth of international payment via SWIFT. However, in Southeast Asia, its money transfer messages ranked sixth although the number of banks was only second to Singapore.

 

Experts from SWIFT Asia and Southeast Asia presented some SWIFT products, experience for securities settlement systems, infrastructure for high-value and low-value market, and some information about Sibos 2012 conference.