Digital transformation continues to be the central orientation of banks to increase competitiveness in the retail banking sector.

Compete with digital tools

Nguyen Dinh Tung, General Director of OCB, said that OCB digital bank has not made many impressions in the past, but in the near future, there will certainly be many positive changes, because OCB has made a very methodical investment in digital banking.

“In the digital environment, OCB can achieve a stronger level of development than before. The year 2021 has proven that if we go in the right direction and stay close to the needs of our customers, we will record very high achievements,” said Tung.

In 2022, OCB will continue to build and upgrade its digital banking center. In addition, the bank is also linking with leading European fintech companies, and is expected to launch a credit card product combined with a mobile application in the next three months, the first time such a product has appeared on the market. Tung also believes that even though it has just been formed, in the long term, digital banking will be OCB's competitive point.

At the recent Annual General Meeting of Shareholders (AGM) 2022, many banks also continued to invest heavily in technology to make a strong step forward in digital transformation.

Specifically, Nam A Bank will focus on consolidating operations, making strong strides in digital transformation with the goal of governance and operation on a digital platform, and creating differentiated products and services that bring the best customer experience and keep profitable growth.

Nam A Bank will continue to perfect the digital banking ecosystem: Robot OPBA, Open Banking and ONEBANK, meeting the transaction needs of customers anytime, anywhere.

HDBank also promotes digital transformation in all areas of operation to prepare for the strong integration of the bank in the digital era; transform the multi-channel business into an online platform with the booming retail segment with the strategy of 1 million new credit cards issued and 1 million new individual customers to complete basic customer journeys of the digital transformation strategy.

Sacombank also sets high expectations in the next five years (2022-2026) with the goal of becoming a leading retail bank along with comprehensive digital transformation through many technology solutions across all key activities.

Ms. Nguyen Phuong Huyen, Deputy Director of Personal Division, and Director of Individual Customers – Sacombank, considers technology to be the decisive factor in the retail banking race, especially when the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has changed the living habits and consumption behavior of the majority of consumers.

With the goal of comprehensive digital transformation and becoming a leading retail bank in the 2022-2026 period, Sacombank is creating its own distinct competitive advantage by combining the following factors: vision and awareness - flexible working methods - technology.

“The digital transformation process at Sacombank has taken place early, the bank now has a team of experts and experienced personnel, with deep knowledge of technology, this team will maximize its leading role, in order to coordinate, inspire and promote other business units to integrate into digital thinking, from administration to operations. It can be said that in this race, we are optimistic and confident because the recent results have also proven these directions," said Phuong Huyen.

Find your own path

Currently, retail banking is a trend and a driving force to accelerate and transform for banks. The fact that most banks are doing the same conversion makes competitive pressure on retail banking increase. In addition to capturing advantages from digital tools, banks also clearly define target customers and separate directions to create competitive advantages for themselves.

According to Phuong Huyen, in order to connect customers and best serve customers' needs from the first point of contact, Sacombank prioritizes two main issues: providing seamless transactions and many non-cash utilities. Among many products and services that Sacombank is providing, Ms. Phuong Huyen assessed that Sacombank Pay application will bring customers the fastest and most optimal experience.

Phuong Huyen also revealed that Sacombank is on a journey of "reverse aging" with retail as the goal and technology as the key to better serve young customers, belonging to Gen Z. Young customers are the factors that help connect technology as well as technological products and services to other generations.

“Last year, despite the pandemic, the number of digital customers of Sacombank still increased sharply, reaching more than 2.5 million users on Sacombank Pay and more than 3 million new customers on internet banking and mobile banking channels," Phuong Huyen said.

OCB has also identified its target customer as the middle-income class. Mr. Nguyen Dinh Tung said this market does not bring much initial profit and takes a lot of effort to develop customers, because a loan from an average-income customer is only VND1-2 billion, so it takes a lot of loans to equal a rich person borrowing a few tens of billions of dong at a time, the amount of CASA (term deposit) of these customers in the bank is also very small.

But OCB believes that this will be a customer segment with high growth and will increasingly dominate, becoming an important segment in the banking system. However, up to now, no bank has paid enough attention to this customer segment, most banks are interested in the well-to-do middle-class customer segment and provide products for that segment.

Nguyen Dinh Tung also said that OCB now has the first product on the market for this segment, Dreamhome, and has brought relatively good results with an increase of about VND1,000 billion in outstanding loans per month.