The Covid-19 outbreak had created an economic slowdown in all industries. However, on the positive side, the pandemic became a test for the transformation agility of businesses in general and the banking industry in particular. In other words, the pandemic was the driving force for each bank to realise a faster and more powerful digital transformation.
The Covid-19 pandemic changed the payment habits of people and businesses
For many years, Ms Nguyen Thanh Hang (40 years old, Nam Tu Liem district) had always used cash to pay with the thought that cash could be used anytime, anywhere, regardless of technology or human qualifications. However, after taking time off from work at home to prevent the Covid-19 epidemic, her habit had changed. Up to then, Ms Hang felt that paying school fees for her children by bank transfer had helped her save waiting time and transaction history instead of having to keep payment receipts. Buying plane tickets via payment cards or scanning QR codes while shopping had bee easier, more convenient, and even get more incentives that were not available in a cash payment.
Regarding the business aspect, Thanh Hai, accountant of a garment company said that previously, due to old operating habits, the accounting department usually implemented from submitting payment authorisation, waiting for approval to go to banks and make transactions. When Covid-19 had a big outbreak, everyone consciously limited contact to avoid infection, then the value of technology and Internet Banking came out. Salary or transfer to partners could be done within minutes without having to move.
It could be said that the epidemic had changed the perception, thinking and action of a large part of Vietnamese people as well as businesses towards digital transactions. The difference was consistent with the development trend of the world as well as the policy of non-cash payment development by the government since 2016 applied to deploy far.
According to the latest figures of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), in the first four months of 2020, payment via cards, internet and mobile phones all grew strongly over the same period in 2019. Specifically, domestic payment via card the bank increased 26.2 percent in volume and 15.7 percent in value; payment via internet channel grew by 3.2 percent in quantity and 45.7 percent in value; payment via mobile phone channels rose 198.8 percent in quantity and 21.9 percent in value over the same period in 2019.
Commercial banks in the non-cash trend
Grasping the above trend, currently, many commercial banks had joined in with a series of incentives for digital payment, applicable to both individual and corporate customers. Typically, with Vietnam Maritime Joint Stock Commercial Bank (MSB), every individual customer was exempted from nearly 50 different types of fee, typically 24/7 interbank fast transfer fee, Internet Banking service fee, Mobile Banking, SMS Banking. In addition, with this bank’s M-Pro account package, customers would receive cashback up to 3.6 million dong per year (equal to one percent refund, up to 200,000 dong per month for of spending through MSB Visa cards in restaurants, supermarkets, shopping centres, petrol stations; and five percent refund, equal to 100,000 dong per month to pay bills and recharge the phone in the Electronic Banking). This was one of the outstanding programmes with a checking account that a few banks deployed.
Also, with any MSB international credit card, customers would receive a series of attractive promotions all seven days a week called ‘Today what day, refund that much’ when shopping, spending at Shoppee, BigC and high-end restaurant chain.
For corporate customers, MSB was implementing a special programme for Zero + super accounts. Accordingly, when registering this account package and activating Internet Banking, businesses enjoyed a series of attractive ‘four zero’ benefits, including zero fees (free online money transfer and the annual fee for banking service in first-year online); zero limited incentives (free service, online salary payment, online batch payment fee, electronic tax payment transaction fee and customs); zero distance (free transfer to all banks); zero waiting (no need to go to the counter, no time-waisting, fast money transfer 24/7 anytime including Saturday and Sunday).
According to a banking expert, payment in general and digital payment, in particular, was the door for customers to access other banking services such as loans, credit cards, savings accounts, foreign exchange, and so on. Therefore, banks were then actively increasing customer experience, guiding users to change their habits, as well as having a more open perspective on digital payment services together with peace of mind about the security of transactions.
