Digital treasury is an important goal of the State Treasury Development Strategy to 2030. Photo: Operations at Phu Tho State Treasury Photo: Thuy Linh

Building a comprehensive information technology architecture towards digital treasury

According to Mr. Tran Quan, Director General of the State Treasury, Digital Treasury is one of the important goals of the State Treasury Development Strategy to 2030. To achieve this goal, the State Treasury will study and advise competent authorities to improve mechanisms and policies related to the functions and tasks of the State Treasury, thereby reforming operations and creating a foundation to IT modernization in management and service providing of the State Treasury.

In addition, the State Treasury has actively joined the Industrial Revolution 4.0, promoting the application of digital technology in its operations, in which the focus is on building and running the Vietnam Digital Budget and Accounting System (VDBAS); connecting and sharing data with related information systems. In particular, the State Treasury will focus on recruiting, training and fostering State Treasury officers with good moral qualities, solid political courage, high qualifications, skills, and creativity to meet the requirements of the digital transformation process.

To start the development process of the Digital Treasury, the State Treasury has developed "An overall information and technology architecture towards the Digital Treasury" plan. This is an important plan and is the foundation for the State Treasury system to quickly progress to the Digital Treasury by 2030. The overall information technology architecture of the State Treasury is in line with the trend of technology development, meeting the requirements of management and modernization of the State Treasury and is part of the Overall Architecture towards the Digital Ministry of Finance. Components of the State Treasury in the overall information technology include: business architecture (management of state budget funds and state financial funds, state accounting general and budget reports, state financial statements, capital mobilization and treasury management, inspection, other operations and internal operations); data architecture; and application architecture.

According to many economic experts, the implementation of digital transformation of state treasury plays an important role in the administration and management of the state budget, making State revenue and expenditure to be presented in clearest and most detailed way. Therefore, managers will have appropriate solutions for economic development for each situation.

Improving the budget management

In the State Treasury Development Strategy to 2030, the State Treasury sets the task for state treasury management to be proactive in accordance with market principles, contributing to improving the efficiency of management of state financial resources; closely linking state treasury management with state budget management and debt management, ensuring the Government's liquidity at all times and efficiency in borrowing costs of the state budget. The strategy aims that by 2025, the cash flow is forecast not to differ by more than 10% from reality; by 2030, the cash flow will not differ by more than 5% from reality and the average balance of the state budget at the end of the day will not exceed the average state budget expenditure of 1-2 days.

According to Mr. Luu Hoang, Director of the Treasury Department, the State Treasury has offered a solution as continuing to expand the scope of revenue and expenditure transactions of state financial funds made through the centralized payment account of the State Treasury to ensure the transparency and efficiency.

At the same time, the State Treasury has organized a centralized payment model, in line with the roadmap for building and developing the national digital payment infrastructure, meeting the Government's smooth payment requirements at a reasonable cost, ensuring that in each banking system the State Treasury has only one account and the entire state treasury balance is concentrated in the State Treasury's account at the State Bank of Vietnam at the end of the day.

In addition, the State Treasury has been improving cash flow forecasting methods and inputting information sources, gradually improved the forecasting quality and performing daily cash flow forecasting; diversifying investment instruments, borrowing from state budget; conducting market-principle-based investment transactions; gradually reducing the idle state budget balance; optimizing the benefits of using the state budget; closely linked state budget management with budget and debt management; improving efficiency of State budget management and reduced loan costs. Especially, the State Treasury has set up a modern risk management framework to realize and assess risks in a timely manner and developed policies to minimize risks.