The new face of banks

In the last days of 2023, the Vietnamese banking industry welcomed a strange yet familiar bank: Prosperity and Development Joint Stock Commercial Bank (PGBank).

PGBank is a familiar brand but in a new look, abbreviated from “Prosperity and Growth Commercial Joint Stock Bank”. After the Vietnam National Petroleum Group (Petrolimex) completely divested from the bank, a group of shareholders with 3 legal entities believed to be part of the Thanh Cong Group ecosystem replaced Petrolimex.

At the launching ceremony of the new brand and the 30th anniversary of its establishment, Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan, Chairman of Thanh Cong Group, was present. Here, for the first time, Thanh Cong was officially introduced as a “strategic partner” of PGBank.

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The strange yet familiar appearance of PGBank. (Photo: PGB).

Also in December 2023, Viet Capital Commercial Joint Stock Bank officially changed its English name from VietCapital Bank to BVBank, and launched a new logo and new brand identity on the occasion of its 31st anniversary.

2023 also witnessed a dramatic change of Lien Viet Post Joint Stock Commercial Bank with the change of logo, brand identity, and abbreviation from LienVietPostBank to LPBank.

Change from within

Of course, banks do not just stop at changing their appearance. According to a representative of BVBank, along with the change of the new logo, BVBank also constantly upgrades products, services, and utilities for customers such as: continuously expanding the network (the number of business units increased by nearly 50% compared to 5 years ago, covering 31 provinces/cities nationwide), launching the DigiBiz application for corporate customers,... the number of customers increased by an average of more than 50% per year.

At LPBank, with the goal of accelerating the digital transformation of enterprises, the bank is promoting the simultaneous implementation of many key projects such as: Converting the core banking system according to the T24 solution provided by the Swiss Temenos Group, deploying the Datalake/DataWarehouse Data Management platform, Payments solution, Treasury solution (front-to-back), Omni channel banking platform... helping the bank easily design more innovative products and services, access the market faster at significantly lower costs.

Besides, some banks with strong financial potential such as VPBank, Techcombank, or Big4 banking group have also shown great ambition in the digital transformation process.

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Banks to accelerate digital transformation in 2023. (Photo: NCB).

Following the success of the Zero Fee campaign, Techcombank continues to invest in digitalization and implement the Cloud-first policy. This policy aims to exploit the strengths of cloud computing to digitally transform data systems, aiming to enhance information security, ensure transaction safety and personalize user experience.

Techcombank, VPBank or Vietcombank,... are also pioneers in applying cashless payment methods with Google Pay and later Apple Pay. In particular, VPBank recently became the first bank in Vietnam to launch Garmin Pay one-touch payment on Garmin smartwatches.

By adding Garmin Pay payment solution to the one-touch payment ecosystem, VPBank becomes the first and only bank in Vietnam to provide a comprehensive and complete set of unlimited Tap & Pay payment wallet solutions on Android or IOS operating systems (including Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Google Pay, VP Pay and Garmin Pay).

In addition, some smaller banks such as NCB also showed strong investment in technology platforms, solutions, products and services. In 2023, this bank took a turning point when it signed a cooperation agreement with the world's leading strategic consulting partner to implement a new strategy for the bank in the 2023-2028 period and in the long term.

NCB's transformation has shown many positive signs. In 2023, the bank recorded the fastest customer growth rate in the past few years. According to statistics, the customer base at NCB in the first 9 months of the year increased by more than 33% compared to the same period last year. The bank also aims to reach a scale of 1 million customers in 2023.

With a series of comprehensive and synchronous innovations, Vietnamese banks have affirmed their increasingly high competitiveness in the market and are ready for a breakthrough in the coming period.

In the Resolution of the Board of Directors dated December 13, 2023 on approving the plan to issue individual shares to increase charter capital, NCB will increase its charter capital from VND 5,600 billion to nearly VND 12,000 billion. Of which, the bank plans to spend VND 200 billion on building brand identity in the period of 2024-2025.