At Smart Banking 2025 in Hanoi, State Bank of Vietnam Deputy Governor Pham Tien Dung set out how the regulator is positioning “data as the foundation” while keeping “customers at the centre” of banking digitalisation. He highlighted that the State Bank of Vietnam has issued a system of circulars governing the full data lifecycle in banking, stating that data collection in the sector sits within this legal framework across areas including statistical reporting, credit information supervision and the Credit Information Center (CIC), anti-money laundering, and operational applications, alongside a focus on “right, complete, clean and live” data and customer protection. The speech pointed to deep integration with the National Population Database and noted that the State Bank of Vietnam was the first to issue a circular on Open API, enabling parties to connect to banking data and services. The sector’s digitisation metrics cited included some banks recording more than 95% of transactions via digital channels, adult bank-account ownership nearing 88%, and the interbank payment system processing over 30 million transactions per day with a value of around VND 900 trillion (over USD 40 billion). As of June 13 2025, banks had biometrically matched more than 117 million individual customer records and over 927,000 organisational records using chip-based citizen ID cards or VNeID; CIC and the Ministry of Public Security’s C06 unit completed six data-cleaning rounds covering about 57 million records, while 63 credit institutions had deployed chip-ID use at branches, 57 credit institutions and 39 payment intermediaries had deployed it on mobile apps, and 32 credit institutions and 15 payment intermediaries were applying VNeID. Alongside Vietnam Banks Association Secretary General Nguyen Quoc Hung, the Deputy Governor also flagged execution gaps, including continued manual checks in some processes despite available identity data, and the need for stronger data standardisation, unified data architecture, privacy and ethics governance, controlled data-sharing, and real-time analytics for credit decisions, risk management and fraud monitoring. Customer-facing controls such as in-app card locking, transaction-limit setting and suspending card-present payments were cited as practical measures to strengthen customer protection, while broader VNeID-based account opening was framed as dependent on tighter integration between bank systems and the Ministry of Public Security.
State Bank of Vietnam 2025-09-25
State Bank of Vietnam underscores data-governance circulars and Open API framework as banks integrate national digital ID
At Smart Banking 2025 in Hanoi, State Bank of Vietnam Deputy Governor Pham Tien Dung emphasized data as the foundation of banking digitalization, supported by circulars governing the data lifecycle. He highlighted integration with the National Population Database and a circular on Open API, noting significant digital transaction metrics and biometric matching achievements. Execution gaps were identified, including manual checks and the need for improved data standardization, privacy governance, and real-time analytics for better customer protection and fraud monitoring.