In 2019, banks will increase digital banking services, boost lending through technology, and apply technology to banking products. However, the development of information technology also poses many challenges for the banking and financial market.
This is the opinion of experts at the Vietnam Annual Economic Conference in 2019 with theme “Breaking from growth dynamics”, held in HCM City on March 12.
Dr Ha Huy Tuan, vice Chair of the National Financial Supervisory Commission, said that there were many challenges to the financial market, due to the large open of the economy while the scale of the market was still small. In particular, with such an open economy, fluctuations in recent trade wars, fluctuations in exchange rates and the world economy will also be noticeable challenges.
The economy, especially the banking and financial market is still in the transition period, so some international practices and standards need to be improved including accounting, auditing and financial market evaluation.
“In particular, the development of information technology poses many opportunities and challenges, the technology helps shorten the development process but brings significant risks. Information technology is creating changes in the structure of operations at businesses and in the state “- Ha Huy Tuan commented.
Another challenge is the sustainable development of the banking and financial market in the context of green finance, climate change, and environmental pollution. Therefore, this is an issue affecting the market that both the State and the credit institutions must consider.
Regarding the impact of technology on operations at credit institutions, Pham Manh Thang, deputy general director of Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank), said that applying digital technology to bank products and services was necessary in the current trend.
This year, Vietcombank’s profit target must be higher than last year of 18 trillion dong, while credit is only driven up by 14 percent. In order to achieve the profit target, the bank determined to push up the digital banking to increase the number of customers using the services and products, especially in the retail sector.
“We will boost technology lending, not just on traditional loan products, governance and information technology application to banking products. Deploying digital banking services will benefit both banks and customers “- Thang said.
Pham Thanh Ha, director of the Monetary Policy Department of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), said that by the end of February 2016, the credit growth of the sector was over one percent. This year, SBV continued to orient credit growth to only about 14 percent, strictly controlling capital flow to contribute to stabilising macro economy and interest rate level. In particular, special control of foreign currency credit will be focused to continue the roadmap against the dollarisation of the economy.
