Under the approval of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), Banking Vietnam 2008 will be co-organized between the Informatics Technology Department of Banking (ITDB) – The State Bank of Vietnam and IDG Vietnam from May 21st to May 23rd 2008, at Meliá Hanoi hotel under the theme “Enhancing Competitive Advantage for Banks". Vietnam Business Forum would like to introduce ideas of experts on this issue.
Dr. Ta Quang Tien
Director, Informatics Technology Department, The State Bank of Vietnam
When we use technology system without the insurance in safety security, it means that we will provide our customers with a service that we are not sure to maintain the trust of customers with the bank. This may result in the loss of money and unanticipated risks. Meanwhile, risks in banking activities are unavoidable in the banking system. Any activity or profession all has two sides: benefits and risks. If we are not aware of risks when they appear, risk phenomena, its importance, and fail to carry out measures to prevent risks, we may have to pay a heavy price for it.
The current trend of modern banks in the world is building a core banking system (centred customer accounting system) that operates under the online mode connecting banks with customers; so they can provide many useful services such as online services, connecting automatic machines to provide the most modern services for banking operation. Currently in Vietnam, many banks, after many years of investments in renovation for banking operation, have developed their own good and modern core banking systems. However, many banks, for some reasons particularly capital and implementation experience, are facing a lot of difficulties in deploying core banking system, especially small-sized banks in Vietnam. We hope that with such a forum as Banking Vietnam 2008, banks that have not been successful will learn experiences to better build their own core banking systems.
Ms Monica Hein
Director, Worldwide Banking Centre of Excellence, IBM
IBM has recently established its Banking Centre in Hanoi, Vietnam.The opening of the Banking Centre in Vietnam is of great strategic value to IBM. As Steve Mills, IBM Senior Vice President Group Executive, said, “Vietnam’s growing economy represents a great opportunity for IBM and the country's banking industry, as it looks forwards to delivering new products and services to meet the growing financial needs of consumers."
The Vietnam IT market in 2008 is expected to be worth US$700 million, with opportunities in all sectors. In concert with the growing economy, a myriad of new banking services are becoming popular in Vietnam. According to the State Bank of Vietnam, in 2006 the number of ATMs grew 21 per cent, while the number of bankcards grew 30 per cent. Because only a small percentage of the population is using these banking services today, given the rate of growth, the IBM Banking Centre of Excellence located in Hanoi will allow us to support banks in Vietnam and bring IBM's global experience to Vietnam’s expanding banking sector. Since 1994, we have built a very good business in Vietnam, with strong growth and opportunities. Vietnam is also a growing part of the world community of software developers. Vietnam represents a tremendous strategic growth opportunity for IBM.
Mr Nguyen Trong Hai Hoang, CEO, Amigo Technologies
As for banking market of Vietnam for the past several years, we have witnessed the radical changes in technology. First is the trend to deploy modern core banking solutions. The majority of strong lenders in the market have finished the most complicated phase, transforming old core banking solutions into modern ones. These banks are now speeding up to make use of those modern core banking solutions to introduce new products and services to customers. Recently, some commercial banks, after having developed core banking, have initially succeeded in developing new modules, and more complicated products such as internet banking. Many banks have started to promote solutions in contact centre, CRM in customer management, risk management sub-system. I believe that these banks will have the most competitive advantages at this time when they have made breakthrough to a new high in technology. Other banks are also clearly aware of the importance of information technology to the competitiveness capacity and the vitality in this period.
Application solutions in Vietnamese market must have specific and distinct features. Therefore, in the coming time we will focus on research, development, and select some typical lenders to carry out pilot solutions before launching common proper solutions for all banks in Vietnam.
Mr Bui Quang Tien
Director of Payment Department, The State Bank of Vietnam
Currently, Vietnam has about 37 card-issuing institutions and 100 banks in Vietnam. Customers can use cards issued by one bank to withdraw money at ATMs of other banks.
The scale of payment activities is now limited among banks and credit institutions. In the coming time, organisations which have good technology solutions are also facilitated to enter the market in order to boost payment supporting activities in Vietnam.
Information technology now pays an important role in all activities of the social life. Outstanding achievements in information technology have brought new applications and success in various fields, especially in banking sector. At present, payment activities of banks fail to meet the demand without the support of computers and information technology applications. Apart from cash payment, banks all use electronic payment models. Currently, state-owned banks are carrying out electronic payment projects funded by World Bank in some big provinces and cities such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Danang, Can Tho, and organising online payment services among members. It can be seen that the role of information technology is very great in payment activities.
Mr Dao Minh Tuan
Deputy General Director of Vietcombank
Almost banks in other countries appreciate the role of internal administration. In Vietnam, internal administration has initially not been paid great attention. Local banks have just attached special importance to the methods to introduce diverse services with high quality to attract more customers, and little attention to internal administration. This has resulted in the imbalance and a lot of inadequacies because internal administration will have higher requirements sooner or later. If Vietnamese banks cannot keep pace with it, they will see many inadequacies in business administration.
Without information technology, enterprises will have only incoherent information, and they also fail to make use of major information effectively. Thanks to information technology, banks will manage internal relationship information in documents, regulations and demonstrating activities taking place in the banks. When banks apply IT effectively, internal administration is required to base on the majority of information about banking professions.
In conclusion, enterprises applying IT have to develop administrative tools and be supported by technology. In addition, they must have other tools to exploit data and information system to support management and administration.
Mr Tran Phuong Binh
BoD Member/Chief Executive Officer, DongA Commercial Joint Stock Bank
Vietnam’s banking sector is still emerging compared with the long-age history of banking and finance development in the world. Therefore, we inherit the best achievements, regulations and practices that the world banking and finance sector have been developing. In addition, we are also facing great challenge, especially in the competition with foreign giant financial institutions.
However, the potential for the development of banking and finance in Vietnam is very great, especially for banks that have competence to provide diverse transaction channels.
East Asia Commercial Bank (DongA Bank), based on existing foundation of technology that is increasingly improved and finished, has a firm ground to further develop strongly in line with the development trend of transaction channels that have helped provide various banking and finance products and services for individuals as well as enterprises. I can say that DongA Bank is one of the leading Vietnamese banks in applying technology into developing banking services. Such services as Mobile banking applications and ATM technology that DongA Bank have introduced to the market to serve customers have helped prove what I said.
Mr Ho Wai Khuen
Regional Director - ASEAN, Avaya
The Vietnam banking industry is on the cusp of a major modernization drive and will face many challenges such as rising customer expectations and consistent user experiences, intensifying competition amidst globalization, mobile and decentralized workforce, and responding to complexity and business risks. Technology will play a prominent role in helping banks meet these challenges and in their pursuit to innovate and differentiate to achieve competitive advantages.
Avaya has many years of experience and partnership with many of the largest banks globally and in the South East Asia region, providing them with intelligent communications solutions that help achieve their business needs. For example, our work with ABN Amro in improving customers experience won The Banker's Technology Award 2007 for best retail banking project.
Avaya will be introducing to Vietnam our innovative Unified Communications (UC) technologies and demonstrate how it is transforming businesses like the financial services industry. Our solutions demonstration will showcase our UC solutions integrating with our eco-system partners like Microsoft, IBM etc.
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