Ms. Nguyen Thuy Duong – President of EY Consulting Vietnam, Vice Chairman of Fintech Club, Banking Association: Scale as a venture capitalist

Survey results on digital transformation in the Vietnamese banking industry show that 42% of commercial banks are building a digital transformation strategy; 28% of commercial banks have been implementing digital transformation strategies integrated with business strategies; 11% of commercial banks have approved and are implementing their own digital transformation strategy; 70% of credit institutions (CIs) are willing to deploy from an average level or higher with the following technologies: Mobile devices, open data connections according to application program interfaces; data analysis, standardization of electronic information according to the international financial electronic information standard ISO 20022; customer support (chatbot, virtual assistant …). In which, data analysis is the most widely used technology in credit operations (over 53% of credit institutions).

In the digital age, every credit institution needs to think like a strategist, innovate like a startup, design like a technology corporation, scale as a venture capitalist.

Mr. Pham Xuan Hung – Head of Supervisory Policy Research and Coordination Committee, National Financial Supervisory Commission: There are still many legal gaps

The development of digital banking in Vietnam is facing a number of limitations and difficulties such as: The legal gaps for digital banking development remain many; legal bases only focus on non-cash payment activities, such as digital signature authentication; identify customers; protecting consumers’ interests in financial services; protect user data privacy. The legal framework often lags behind technological developments.

In addition, the strategy for investment in the financial foundation technology is slow and inconsistent; There are still many shortcomings in sharing data between fields. There are still many limitations on information technology resources in digital banking development; Communication and consumer awareness raising (between regions) have not been strengthened.

Overview of the Forum “The future of digital banking strategy in Vietnam”

In order to accelerate the digital transformation process, state management agencies need to soon complete the legal framework in the areas of: Limited Online Customer Identification (eKYC); the bank’s trust agent system for non-cash payment services, digital banking services; policies on information safety and confidentiality in electronic transactions to protect the legitimate interests of customers; electronic banking process, supervise digital banking activities.

Commercial banks need to study and build a digital transformation roadmap; appropriate resource allocation for investment in new technology; promote banking digitization and develop pure digital banking.

Mr. Pham Xuan Hoe – Former Deputy Director of Banking Strategy Institute: Risk management, security, confidentiality

Digital technology is gradually changing the forms of providing financial and banking services. Digitalization helps commercial banks save 60-70% of costs and access more and more to digital banking services, integrating multi-dimensional in providing full financial services.

Digitalization has created a big change in the banking industry in terms of customer experience, more difficult banking, less loyalty; The increase in non-intermediary activities, in other words, the intermediary role of commercial banks will no longer be a unique position in the market, but will be replaced by online provision on technology platforms (the platform of P2P lending or P2P payment).

The emergence of huge data sources and integrated automatic collection processing and analysis by Bigdata technology will create a turning point in revenue development on a large scale. Technology development requires a change in the legal environment (open perspective) to reasonably support the development of new financial-banking business models.

Vietnamese commercial banks are mostly in the second stage (digital transformation), having implemented digital banking at the transition level in terms of processes and communication channels, while converting to new data platforms. deployed at some pioneering commercial banks. In order to develop digital banking in the future, it is necessary to have an open and balanced view that encourages innovation in policy making; National database and connection is the foundation for digital financial services.

Commercial banks need to strictly implement solutions to risk management, security, confidentiality, and consumer data assurance; take advantage of technology in capacity assessment and training to retain talent; need a database strategy. In addition, the Government’s support for policy is indispensable.

Survey results on digital transformation in the Vietnamese banking industry show that 42% of commercial banks are building a digital transformation strategy; 28% of commercial banks have been implementing digital transformation strategies integrated with business strategies; 11% of commercial banks have approved and are implementing their own digital transformation strategy …

At the General Meeting of Shareholders in 2021, the leader of VietinBank said, continuing to solve difficulties for businesses affected by natural disasters, epidemic COVID-19.

The results are positive

Information from the State Bank showed that: The credit flow is mainly focusing on production areas, priority areas, for example credit growth in agriculture, forestry and fisheries reached 2.42%; industry 3.04% … Credit in securities in the first quarter of 2021 reached VND 45,300 billion, down 1% compared to the end of 2020; credit in real estate reached 1.85 million billion, up 3%.

Credit growth is also evident in the business results of some banks. At the 2021 Annual General Meeting of Shareholders (AGM) of VietinBank that took place on the morning of April 16, Mr. Le Duc Tho – Member of the Party Central Committee, Chairman of VietinBank’s Board of Directors said: Quarter I / 2021, the safety and operational efficiency indicators of VietinBank are much better than the same period last year, of which the main operating income categories all grew by over 25% over the same period last year. 2020, operating costs will be managed effectively, cost-to-income (CIR) ratio will be maintained at a reasonable level; Asset quality is well managed, NPL ratio is managed below 1%.

With credit growth in the first quarter of 2021 reaching 3.69%, Vietcombank continued to lead the credit growth system. Vietcombank is assigned a credit growth limit of 10.5% in 2021. According to Mr. Nghiem Xuan Thanh, Member of the Central Committee of the Party, Chairman of the Board of Directors (BOM) of Vietcombank, the State Bank assigns a high credit target to Vietcombank based on many factors: ability to increase credit; capital is mainly poured into priority areas; low bad debt; Loan to deposit ratio (LDR) of the bank is only 71% while most other banks are over 90%. “With the result of credit increase in the first quarter of 2021, if the State Bank adjusts its growth target, Vietcombank can increase credit by 14% in this year 2021”, said Mr. Nghiem Xuan Thanh.

Representatives of LienVietPost on the morning of April 16 said: In the first quarter of 2021, Lien Viet Post Bank (stock code LPB) had a pre-tax profit of 1.112 billion dong, nearly doubling the same period last year. By the end of March 31, 2021, LienVietPostBank’s total assets reached more than 245,200 billion, an increase of over 20% over the same period last year. Capital mobilization from economic organizations and individuals continued to grow well, reaching nearly 206,300 billion VND. Market 1 outstanding loans reached over VND 183,100 billion, an increase of more than VND 6,100 billion compared to the end of 2020. Notably, the proportion of retail growth in credit growth in the first quarter of 2021 was more than 80%, shows the bank’s consistent orientation towards the retail segment.

On the HoSE stock exchange, stock LPB was in the group of stocks with the highest market price growth in the first quarter of 2021, up nearly 40%, from 12,400 VND / share in the trading session on December 31. / 2020 to 17,350 VND / share in the session on 31/03/2021. And currently reaching the price of nearly 19,000 VND / share. According to the plan on April 29, LienVietPostBank will hold an annual shareholder meeting, it is expected that this year, the bank will set a pre-tax profit target of 3,200 billion dong. Thus, with the results of the first quarter of 2021 reaching VND 1,112 billion, LienVietPostBank has completed about 35% of the profit target in this year’s business plan.

“The COVID-19 epidemic that broke out in some localities across the country continued to negatively impact production and business, especially the accommodation, catering, transportation and tourism industries; the consumption of agricultural products in some localities in epidemic areas has many difficulties …, affecting production and business, revenue and cash flow to repay debts of customers, thereby affecting bank credit activities ” , Mr. Nguyen Tuan Anh, Director of Credit Department for Economic Sectors (SBV).

In the difficult context of the economy, credit institutions (CIs) have implemented solutions to support people and businesses to overcome difficulties caused by the COVID-19 epidemic, by the end of March. / 2021 has restructured the repayment term for nearly 263 thousand customers with outstanding loans of more than VND 353 trillion; interest rate exemption, reduction and reduction for more than 660 thousand customers with outstanding debt balance of over VND 1.27 million. In particular, credit institutions have provided new loans with lower interest rates than before, with accumulated sales from January 23, 2020 up to now reaching over VND 3 million billion to over 452 thousand customers.

Maintain growth, support businesses

According to Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) Nguyen Thi Hong, positive information on the first quarter business index of the banking system is the basis for forecasting credit growth this year will reach about 12%. This number will also be adjusted to suit the actual situation.

According to Dr. Vo Tri Thanh, a member of the National Financial and Monetary Policy Advisory Council, said that at present, the State Bank still operates a credit policy based on the total credit growth, but is flexible in the face of developments. try to both contribute to the economic recovery process but also have to be skillful so as not to cause “break-up” in the macro. “The credit growth rate in recent years has been slower, but the growth rate is not low compared to the previous years. The scale of credit balance / GDP is getting bigger and bigger (currently about 140%), so it is reasonable for the credit control to increase at 12% in 2021. If the economy recovers well, the credit for the whole economy can increase by 11-13% this year and is expected to grow stronger from the second quarter, “said Dr. Can Van Luc, economist. BIDV’s chief forecasted.

“VietinBank continues to proactively implement solutions to balance capital effectively, reduce capital costs to create resources to continue strongly implementing preferential policies, reducing lending interest rates and service fees, maintain the level of lending interest rates and service fees at the lowest and most reasonable level, support and accompany people and businesses affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, ”said Mr. Le Duc Tho.

Outstanding loans of VietinBank in 2021 are expected to grow by 7.5%, complying with the credit limit approved by the State Bank; capital mobilized from economic entities and individuals grew by 8-12%, adjusted in accordance with credit growth, and ensured prudential ratios as prescribed by the State Bank of Vietnam. NPL / credit balance is controlled below 1.5%.

From now to the end of the year, VietinBank continues to grow strongly in business activities, accompanied by dramatic improvements in quality and efficiency; implementing appropriate credit growth solutions while balancing effective capital sources; improving the quality of risk management, quality of growth, effectiveness and efficiency of internal control inspection; accelerating debt collection, handling risks, bad debts, improving asset quality. “Continuing to implement solutions to help remove difficulties for customers affected by natural disasters and epidemics, especially the COVID-19 epidemic under the direction of the Government and the State Bank of Vietnam,” said Mr. Le Duc Tho. .

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As VnEconomy reportedAccording to the latest figures from the State Bank, in the first quarter of 2021, real estate credit has reached 1.85 million billion dong, up 3%. So this number has fully reflected and is the main reason why the real estate market is so hot today?

During the past 3 years, real estate investment credit has always been closely cared and controlled by the State Bank. Therefore, credit growth in this area tends to decrease. In 2020 alone, it will increase by only 11.89%, while the previous two years 2018 and 2019 will increase from 26-28%.

According to the operator’s representative, at the end of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021, real estate credit tends to inch up a bit. However, the growth rate is only equivalent to the overall credit growth of the whole country of 2.93%.

Credit for life has also reached nearly 1.87 million billion, up 1.2% compared to the beginning of the year. In particular, although it is difficult, it is also necessary to evaluate how much consumer credit is poured into real estate.

At the same time, compared to the same period in 2020 when the epidemic causes the real estate credit rate to increase by 1.84%, the above rate may be higher. But compared with the time of the first quarter of 2019 was 5.19% and the previous years, this rate is not higher, even much lower.

If you look at the above statistics, it can be seen that real estate credit is not the main cause of the current “land fever”.

However, when VnEconomy exchanged with an economist, he said that the above figure could not fully assess the credit flow flowing into real estate. Because, credit for life has also reached nearly 1.87 million billion, or 1.2% increase compared to the beginning of the year. In particular, although it is difficult, it is necessary to evaluate how much consumer credit is poured into real estate.

“When surveying a few projects that are selling land plots in the outskirts of Hanoi, I find that the buyers are mainly speculators, they not only buy 1 or 2 plots, but buy the whole range. In addition to existing out-of-pocket money, capital from the bank is indispensable. It is worth mentioning that they are allowed to borrow capital in the form of consumption, but with the amount of up to tens of billion dong, ”said the expert.

Besides, he also said that the real estate market is welcoming many new “players”. They are inherently participating in other industries, but due to the Covid-19 translation, their production and business have stalled. While real estate profit margin skyrocketed, so decided to change direction. In fact, just go online to search for the phrase “encroach on real estate” to be able to identify these new “players”.

“The capital accumulated for many years has been converted to real estate, while the capital for business operations is borrowed from the bank. Thus, this credit flow will be listed on production and business activities, not on real estate. The statistic is just the tip of the iceberg, ”said the expert.

The State Bank is asking credit institutions to inspect and strengthen supervision of regulations on real estate lending conditions, to ensure compliance with regulations, while being able to manage cash flow when loan.

That is an expert opinion, but on the part of the State Bank, Deputy Governor Dao Minh Tu said there are many reasons for the real estate market to overheat in recent years, such as rumors about planning information, the supply is limited while the demand is great, the land price list increases …

In addition, Mr. Tu also noted that real estate loans have two subjects, one is lending to the low-cost housing market segments, social houses or real estate with the nature of consumption. it is still guaranteed to serve the people well.

Second, real estate projects and high-end segments such as villas, resorts … with poor liquidity in the future will be revalued and strictly controlled.

“Real estate credit status higher than overall credit growth only appears in a few credit institutions and mainly focuses on the first object,” said the Deputy Governor.

Over the past years, the State Bank has consistently maintained its management target and has taken many measures to control credit in potentially risky areas, including real estate. For example, the system is implementing a regulation on short-term deposits for medium and long-term loans at 40% and that these loans must apply a risk factor of about 200%.

At the same time, the Deputy Governor also said that the State Bank is asking credit institutions to inspect and strengthen supervision of regulations on real estate lending conditions, to ensure compliance with regulations, in parallel. with that is managing cash flow when lending.

“The most important goal of 2021 when setting a credit growth target of 12% is to focus on the priority and necessary areas. Focusing on key works and projects of the State, as well as prioritizing certain economic sectors, such as exports to support economic growth rates according to the goals set by the National Assembly. Therefore, real estate credit will be tightly controlled and cannot increase hotly ”, Mr. Tu emphasized.