Bank rushing to deploy digital transformation

Customers experience non-cash payment services of Vietcombank. Photo:H.Diu

Time for ‘chips’

Recently, seven banks, including Vietcombank, VietinBank, BIDV, Agribank, Sacombank, TPBank and ABBank, officially announced the launch of domestic chip cards. The change is considered an inevitable trend, consistent with regional and international countries in the context of the increasing number of hi-tech crimes. In addition, it is also an advanced technology solution in providing non-cash payment products to customers.

Vietnam currently has about 76 million cards issued by 48 banks, more than 261,000 POS and 18,600 ATMs, most of which have complied with EMV standards, so the deployment of domestic chip cards will not be too complicated.

Under the Government's roadmap, local commercial banks have to convert at least 30% of their domestic magnetic cards, 35% of ATMs and 50% of POS machines to contact and contactless chip-based technology by the end of the year. By the end of 2021, all cards from inland circulation of card issuers must meet standards on domestic chip cards.

Therefore, a director of a card center from a commercial bank said that it is expected to introduce its first chip cards which meet EMV standards by the end of the year. Initially, this bank will install POS machine that can read chip cards at movie theaters and supermarkets nationwide. However, if POS does not have new technology, it can still accept cards to pay normally.

Tran Quoc Anh, Head of Personal Banking Division of HDBank, said that the bank is deploying new technologies safely and is cooperating with card companies and big network operators to prevent hacking. Besides, the bank also focuses on communication to card users to increase safety.

Cooperation in changing

Banks are building ecosystems, not only banks that provide payment solutions but also banks and service providers, business systems and organizations work together to provide the best banking services and develop non-cash payment services. The association among banks and technology and telecommunication enterprises is starting by building a digital bank that integrates mobile wallets and card systems.

In Vietnam, only 30% of the population has a bank account, and 85% of them make cash withdrawals. Therefore, Phung Nguyen Hai Yen, Deputy General Director of Vietcombank, said that the biggest difficulty for banks is the limited access to financial information services of the people, and the use of cash takes place regularly. But this is also an opportunity for banks to expand development services to all people from urban to rural areas. Therefore, she said the cooperation between banks and telecommunications companies will become the trend in the future. Vietcombank has also expanded and cooperated with telecom companies to provide the best financial services, including simple payment services such as paying electricity and water bills online, or more complex payment such as financial investments for customers.

In the cooperation on digital transformation in the banking sector, recently, SunTec ­– the leading company in revenue management – successfully deployed the Customer Centricity System (CCS) to Maritime Bank (MSB). According to MSB, the CCS system can automatically classify the bank's individual customers based on their financial transactions. Thereby, the MSB will offer customized products and services in accordance with the needs of each target customer in a favorable circumstance. The system's pricing capability is also an important function to increase the bank's efficiency in price calculation for each customer group. Huynh Buu Quang, General Director of MSB, said the automation in processes and customer services makes banks more flexible in providing products and services, creating advantages for MSB.

Banks are making efforts to strengthen the ability of digital innovation, bringing the management of customer relations and customer service to a new level. This will contribute to the development of a healthy and sustainable credit system with a higher resilience to external impacts.