The trend of shifting to cashless payments
On October 29, under the chairmanship of the State Bank, the Vietnam Banks Association and IEC Group jointly organized the Smart Banking 2024 Conference and Exhibition. The conference and exhibition were organized with the aim of connecting leading leaders and experts in the finance and banking industry, providing in-depth insights into the latest technologies, contributing to finding breakthrough strategies to build a safe and sustainable digital future for the banking industry.
With the theme “Shaping the Digital Future of Banking: Safe and Sustainable Operational Strategies”, this year’s event emphasizes the importance of safety measures and sustainable development strategies for the banking industry in the digital space.
In his opening speech, Mr. Nguyen Quoc Hung - Vice Chairman and General Secretary of the Vietnam Banking Association said that in the first 7 months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, non-cash payment transactions increased by 58.44% in quantity and 35.13% in value. Transactions via ATM decreased by 13.35% in quantity and 6.13% in value compared to the same period in 2023.
"That shows the trend of people shifting to cashless payments. Security and safety in payment activities and information systems applied to banking operations, as well as high-tech crime prevention activities in the banking sector continue to be enhanced. There have been more than 37 million customers successfully registering biometric information, which is a positive step to help reduce risks and protect users from fraud and scams," said Mr. Hung.
The Vice President and General Secretary of the Vietnam Banking Association emphasized that digital transformation has many new, complex and rapidly changing factors. Therefore, it is necessary to continuously absorb international achievements and experiences and apply them creatively, in accordance with the specific conditions and circumstances of Vietnam.
Bypassing regulations by opening a corporate account
Speaking at the workshop, Deputy Governor of the State Bank Pham Tien Dung said that after implementing Decision 2345 and Circular 17, the number of fraudulent accounts has decreased significantly. However, there is no radical and perfect solution.
Decision 2345 and Circular 17 have tightened the opening of personal accounts for individual customers. However, since then, there has been a situation of circumventing regulations by opening corporate accounts and bypassing biometric authentication for fraudulent purposes.
"Banks are requested to focus on opening business accounts to ensure the authentication of the legal representative of the business. When conducting business transactions, it is necessary to divide the levels. For large transactions, it is necessary to carry out with secure signatures, ensuring that when problems arise, the signer must take responsibility" - the Deputy Governor of the State Bank suggested.
According to Mr. Dung, businesses are licensed to operate by competent state agencies. If the business owner cannot be identified, fraud will occur in all fields: Securities, real estate, studying abroad, recruitment...
Therefore, Mr. Dung suggested that the authorities coordinate with the bank to ensure the origin, and that the legal representative has a citizen identification card for tracing.
To ensure information security in the banking sector, Mr. Le Van Tuan - Director of the Department of Information Security, Ministry of Information and Communications requested banks to strictly implement legal regulations on information security.
"In the coming time, the Ministry of Information and Communications and the Department of Information Security will strengthen inspection and examination of the implementation of regulations on information security in the financial and banking sector," Mr. Tuan emphasized.
According to the Director of the Information Security Department, each unit in the banking industry needs to have a comprehensive plan and strategy to monitor, detect, protect, respond quickly, and recover from incidents for its own unit; it is necessary to invest in modern technology and enhance prevention capabilities....
