Trần Tuấn Anh, Politburo member, head of the Central Economic Commission, speaks at Smart Banking 2022. — VNS Photo

Banking is a particularly important economic sector, playing the role as "lifeline" of the national economy. 

The industry makes an important contribution to mobilising and allocating financial resources to promote and develop the country's socio-economy, said Trần Tuấn Anh, Politburo member, head of the Central Economic Commission, at a banking summit.

The Central Economic Commission and the State Bank of Việt Nam held a high-level summit on Smart Banking 2022 in Hà Nội on Wednesday.

The summit on digital transformation aims to solve difficulties and problems as well as promote the process of exchanging and sharing experiences with international experts in the digital transformation process, thereby providing more recommendations to contribute to the development of the banking industry in the future.

The State Bank of Việt Nam and the entire banking industry have actively implemented tasks to participate in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, as well as strong digital transformation in various fields, achieving many positive results.

Banking industry is the first industry to announce its digital transformation date (May 11); and issue the Digital Transformation Plan to 2025, with a vision to 2030.

Việt Nam is assessed by Global Management and Consulting Company (McKinsey) as having the fastest digital banking application in the region last year.

The experience of fast, efficient and sustainable digital transformation of the banking industry will be useful experience for other sectors and fields in the economy.

Deputy Governor of the State Bank of Việt Nam Nguyễn Kim Anh added that this result is reflected in many areas of the banking industry, such as many banking services could be fully utilised on digital channels and many Vietnamese banks have over 90 per cent of transactions on digital channels.

Common technologies of the Industry 4.0, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data, have been deployed, especially in the context of the recent pandemic. The demand for online transactions has increased rapidly, while the technology infrastructure of the banking industry was fully responsive.

As digital transformation is also associated with information security, the banking industry has been proactive in building and investing in technology infrastructure to keep pace with the rapid growth of the market.

The State Bank of Việt Nam said that it would continue to improve mechanisms, policies, and legal frameworks, including the Law on Credit Institutions, the Law on the State Bank, and a mechanism for controlled testing of financial technology activities in the banking sector (sandbox) as well as regulations to facilitate the application of digital technology.

The State Bank's Payment Department recommended accelerating the completion of standards for connection with the national population database and the citizen identity database, allowing sharing and open connection with other service industries such as banking, telecommunications, and insurance.

In addition, in order to ensure the enhancement of people's trust in electronic transactions, and to further facilitate the implementation of digital applications in the banking sector, it was necessary to quickly amend the Law on Electronic Transactions 2005 to be more in line with the reality of the banking industry, it said.

Also within the framework of Smart Banking 2022 event, the National Cyber ​​Security Center (NCSC) under the Authority of Information Security, the Ministry of Information and Communications, co-ordinated with the Information Technology Department of the State Bank of Việt Nam to hold DF Cyber ​​Defense, which will be the largest annual event on cyber attack prevention in the banking and financial sectors in Việt Nam.

The DF Cyber ​​Defense 2022 aims to increase co-ordination, hone skills, reduce processing time and react quickly to technically equipped attacks, new tactics; improve the capacity of network safety and security of the staff in charge of information technology in financial institutions and banks.