Ngo Van Duc, deputy head of the PaymentMethod Supervision Division under the SBV’s Payment Department, said thetelecommunication infrastructure had been improving, with more than half of thepopulation using smartphones and the internet and companies providing 3G and 4Gservices nationwide.
Around 63 percent of adults inthe country had bank accounts as of last year, he said.
Thirty one non-bank institutionshad been licensed for providing payment intermediary services, while 24 bankshad launched QR code payment services with over 50,000 payment spots, he said.
More and more monetarytransactions are made on the internet and mobile phones, he pointed out.
Regulations for fintech werestill limited, and completing a comprehensive legal framework for fintech wascrucial amid the ongoing 4th industrial revolution, he added.
Since 2017, the SBV has beensupporting the development of fintech, establishing a steering committee to focuson the fintech eco-system and signing cooperation agreements in addition to theplanned proposal for creating a regulatory sandbox some time this year.
A regulatory sandbox will allowinnovative fintech to be developed and tested to perfect such technology whilereducing the risk for customers.
The model has been launched inseveral countries such as Singapore, Malaysia and Japan.
Authur Leong, head of strategy,special project and fintech investment at Singapore’s United Overseas BankLimited, said banks and fintech businesses should cooperate rather than competeagainst each other.
Traditional banks working withsuch businesses could benefit through creating new capabilities andcompetencies and improving their overall customer experiences, while smallfintech businesses that partner with established banks could enjoy highervisibility and customer trust, he said.
He added that the development ofa fintech eco-system required a talented workforce through STEM education,reskilling and attracting overseas talent in addition to other factors such asregulatory framework, payment infrastructure and sandbox to promote innovationtesting.
Dinh Ba Tien, head of the IT Departmentat the Vietnam University HCM City - University of Science, said IT students weretaught artificial intelligence, kept up to date with newest developments andhad the opportunity to handle real world applications.
"There are many examples oftechnological applications in banking such as blockchain for more trusted trackrecords and ChatBots for communicating with customers," Tien said, addingthat in future AI could be used in areas such as face recognition, dataanalytics for loans and fraud detection.
According to the Ministry ofEducation and Training, there are around 153 schools and universities with ITor computer science programmes, and 35,000 people graduate in the fieldannually./.