Leveraging Modern Technology to Transform Innovative Banking Services

Delivering the opening address, SBV Deputy Governor Nguyen Toan Thang said the financial and banking industry is considered a strongly influencing service industry that exerts a strong impact on the entire economy. In that industry, the banking sector holds the highest share and the development of the financial sector interrelates with other service sectors. He added that the development potential of banking services is very enormous, expansible, addable and contributable to economic growth, explaining that banking networks are primarily concentrated in cities while the potential of rural areas remains untapped. Besides, banks have not strongly tapped cross-border banking services while trading, tourism, education activities are on the rise. Global connectivity is growing up.

 

Mr Le Thanh Tam, CEO of IDG ASEAN, affirmed that financial and banking operations in Vietnam have subsided on growing competition pressures caused by international integration. Although the bank restructuring wave is rolling, we have yet to see major breakthroughs in governance innovation, business performance, competitiveness improvement, information technology upgrading and banking modernisation. Specially, banking services lack proper care in spite of holding appeal for potential customers.

 

Remarking on banking operations, he said, modern tech application of is leveraged spectacular success and sustainable growth in the currently digitalised business environment. The presence of new tech applications in all fields has increased expectations of users on operations of vendors in quality improvement and service diversification. Therefore, competitive edge will be handed to banks being aware of tech roles and striving to build modern tech-driven banking operations.

 

Mr Bui Quang Tien, Director of Payment Department under the SBV, said, in addition to conventional payments, new payment services based on modern technologies are increasingly developed, diversified and gradually brought to life, such bank cards, Internet Banking, Mobile Banking, SMS Banking, Home Banking and E-Wallet. By the end of March 2015, Vietnam had over 16,100 ATMs and 192,000 POS/EDCs. Over 86 million credit cards have been issued and card transactions have been on the rise.

 

Regarding security issues, attendants recommended that banks need to focus on developing and upgrading advanced security methods and cooperate with security agencies to quickly identify threats and keep them at bay.

 

Besides the conference, Banking Vietnam Technology Expo 2015 showcased a wide range of state-of-the-art products and up-to-date banking technologies from leading companies in the banking sector, which help banks generate the best strategic plans in the new evolving context. The expo also brought about unique partnership opportunity and face-to-face networking access to more than 600 key-decision purchasing makers, including CEOs, CIOs, CSOs and IT directors.

 

Banking products and services formed from cashless payment transactions have made a great progress. For example, 80.39 million bank cards were issued in the country as of the end of December 2014. The proportion of cash used in payment has decreased to 12-13 per cent now and expected to be below 11 per cent at the end of 2015.

 

However, the banking sector still has to face and deal with drawbacks such as unequal access to banking services among population and economic institutions, and unpopular electronic payments notwithstanding development breakthroughs.

 

To solve these issues, banks need to improve customer information quality, both personal and corporate customers, and this requires actions from central authorities like the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Justice. On the national level, the Government needs to have a clear strategy for financial education for citizens, starting from younger generations. In the near term, through mass media, the SBV needs to popularise the information of banking industry, credit institutions advertise their products and services to citizens in the countryside, and they also need to further strengthen their ties with businesses.

 

Businesses will base more on analyses, data, electronic information distribution, flexibility, and social media

 

Like most other fields, financial services are being leveraged by the interest of global customers collecting more data with a faster data access through various channels such as mobile devices and social networks. This dynamic trend is gradually changing the way we do business. Then, it changes the way our network is structured and developed.

 

As for financial services, a recent study showed core trends predicted for 2015: To catch up with consumer tastes, businesses will base more on analyses, data, electronic information distribution, flexibility, and social media

 

As interactions with service customers and partners increase in channels, risks will increase as a result. Therefore, system security becomes more important.

 

Cloud-based payments (CBP) enable issuers to deploy payment products based on virtual or real requirements. This delivers significant efficiency in costs, high scalability and customer feedback rate - previously infeasible aspects. Users can use any mobile device to perform payment transactions or in-app payment. Additionally, CBP helps banks focus on payment services for businesses without having to take much concern over IT issues.

 

Host emulation card (HCE) is leveraging the mobile payment ecosystem to change rapidly, enabling banks, card issuers, retailers and intermediary payment agencies to provide contactless services for customers.

SimplyTapp developed the HCE system to rebuild contactless mobile payment methods with easier usages and more reasonable costs. Pioneering in renovating contactless payment methods, SimplyTapp has constantly brought extraordinary developments to the banking and finance industry, including CBP and related development solutions.