The above exercise is part of the plan to ensure continuous operation of NAPAS to comply with Circular 09/2020/TT-NHNN of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) on regulations on information system security in banking activities, thereby ensuring the financial switching system and electronic clearing of banks are stable, safe and smooth.
Pursuant to Article 52, Circular 09/2020/TT-NHNN issued by the State Bank of Vietnam on October 21, 2020, NAPAS has developed a plan and coordinated with member banks to conduct periodic drills every 6 months in April and October every year to convert the technical system from the main data center (DC) to the backup data center (DR) and operate the system at the backup center for 03 to 05 days. The conversion aims to enhance the ability to respond to unexpected situations that may occur to the technical system, contributing to improving service quality and ensuring that the financial switching and electronic clearing system always maintains safety, stability and smoothness.
Accordingly, the time to convert NAPAS's technical system from the Main Data Center (DC) to the Backup Data Center (DR) will take place from 00:00 to 01:00 on October 28, 2024, and then convert back from the Backup Data Center (DR) to the Main Data Center (DC) from 00:00 to 01:00 on November 1, 2024.
The services will be converted in turn, the total planned implementation time of the systems will not exceed 60 minutes, in which the NAPAS 247 express transfer service will be suspended for no more than 20 minutes. The arrangement of appropriate rehearsal time frames has been calculated by NAPAS and the participating banks to minimize the impact on service quality as well as limit the impact on people's money transfer/payment transactions.
Before implementation, NAPAS reported the plan and content of the drill to convert the operation of the systems from the main data center to the backup data center to the State Bank of Vietnam's Information Technology Department; at the same time, proactively notified all member banks to prepare resources for coordinated implementation and minimize impacts on customers.
With the strong development of electronic payment activities in recent years, the NAPAS system has also recorded rapid growth in quantity and payment transactions.
As of September 30, 2024, transactions via NAPAS increased by approximately 32% in quantity and 18% in transaction value compared to the same period in 2023. As a financial switching and electronic clearing unit for retail transactions, NAPAS always sets the top goal of ensuring the system operates stably, safely and smoothly.
NAPAS has accelerated the deployment of information technology infrastructure, optimizing solutions to ensure information security for technical systems according to international standards. Thanks to that, the NAPAS system has met the requirements for continuous and smooth operation time, ensuring more than the minimum rate of 99.98% according to the goal of developing the Vietnamese payment system by 2030.
In the coming time, NAPAS will continue to closely coordinate with member banks to deploy solutions to improve service quality, in parallel with strengthening 24/7 on-call service to be ready to support banks, payment intermediaries and businesses, especially during peak holiday and Tet periods.
According to Article 52 of Circular 09/2020/TT-NHNN, regulations on the implementation of ensuring continuous operation of the information system are as follows:
1. The organization must have a plan and organize the implementation to ensure continuous operation of the information system (except for the main and backup information systems operating in parallel) according to the following requirements:
a) At least once every six months, conduct inspections and evaluate the operation of the backup system;
b) Carry out the transfer of operations from the main system to the backup system and the official operation on the backup system for at least 1 working day of each information system according to the list in Clause 2, Article 49 of this Circular, once a year for information systems from level 4 and above, once every two years for information systems from level 3 and below; evaluate the results and update the conversion procedures and scenarios (if any). In case the operation cannot be transferred within a working day, the backup system must be set up with the same capacity and configuration as the main system and the conversion and readiness of the backup system must be checked annually.
2. Organizations with only one headquarters in Vietnam (except microfinance institutions and grassroots people's credit funds) must organize and conduct annual drills to ensure continuous operations.
3. The organization must notify the State Bank (Information Technology Department) of the plan, content and scenario of the continuous operation transition exercise at least 5 working days before implementation via email address antt@sbv.gov.vn.
