New experience in payment

The future trend of the banking industry is digital technology, with applications in payment methods such as Tap to Pay, Tap to Phone, QR code payment, e-wallet, mobile payment... along with digital technologies such as electronic customer identification (eKYC),... New payment technologies contribute to promoting Vietnam's digital economy.

In addition, based on customers' biometric data, the new payment technology Smile to Pay allows facial recognition to replace personal information authentication steps, which is considered a new payment trend.

At the press conference announcing the Vietnam Card Day 2024 event, Mr. Nguyen Quang Hung - Chairman of the Board of Directors of Vietnam National Payment Joint Stock Company (NAPAS), said that with Smile to Pay payment technology, the banking industry deploys card account registration with customers' faces. When paying, customers only need to scan their faces, without having to enter any information or pin code. This method is both experiential and ensures the security of users' accounts.

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Mr. Nguyen Quang Hung - Chairman of NAPAS Board of Directors. Photo: Nhu Y

Mr. Nguyen Quang Hung said that this technology will be introduced by NAPAS at the Vietnam Card Day 2024 event taking place on October 5-6 in Hanoi.

“In essence, the payment card has an integrated face, when paying, just use the camera to smile on that device and the payment will be accepted without using a physical card. This is a new payment method in the world and NAPAS will officially deploy it in the near future,” said Mr. Nguyen Quang Hung.

In addition, in the e-commerce environment, banks also apply the 3DS standard for card payments. When customers have good transaction history data, banks can analyze and compare historical payment data, thereby allowing customers to skip OTP authentication steps.

Nowadays, payment cards have been digitized on mobile devices, turning the phone into a payment card. Or the technology of digitizing payment acceptance devices (soft post) allows turning smartphones into soft machines to help expand the payment acceptance network.

According to NAPAS payment data in the first 6 months of 2024, 247 fast money transfer transactions via the NAPAS system increased by 45% in number of transactions and 29% in transaction value.

In addition, ATM cash withdrawals continued to decline, down 23% in volume and 22% in value, indicating that cash payments are increasingly shrinking.

Biometric registration won't require NFC

Mr. Pham Anh Tuan - Director of the Payment Department, State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), said that there are still difficulties in collecting and checking biometric information, especially for customers who do not use technology.

However, in legal documents, the State Bank has requested credit institutions to consider providing customer support services at the counter, or by collecting different forms of biometric information, but still ensuring security, safety, and confidentiality of personal data according to Decree 13 of the Government.

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Mr. Pham Anh Tuan - Director of Payment Department, State Bank of Vietnam. Photo: Nhu Y

Vietcombank is the first bank to deploy biometric information collection through VNEID, this is a very convenient form of biometric information verification, without having to use NFC or physical methods to read data, creating very favorable conditions for people.

“Currently, most service providers are working with C06 (Ministry of Public Security) to deploy this solution. In the near future, when the solution to collect and verify biometric information through VNEID is widely deployed to all service providers and payment intermediaries, these difficulties will almost disappear,” said Mr. Pham Anh Tuan.

Ms. Doan Hong Nhung - Member of the Executive Board, Director of Retail Banking at Vietcombank - assessed that the technical infrastructure for digital payments in Vietnam has developed strongly in recent times. The State Bank of Vietnam has also promptly deployed and guided commercial banks to ensure the technical infrastructure for digital payments.

"In addition to the traditional payment system, new payment methods as well as payments based on big data and general information according to the Project on developing applications of data on population, identification and electronic authentication to serve national digital transformation in the period of 2022-2025, with a vision to 2030, are creating a big push with biometric payment authentication.

In this context, new requirements that commercial banks receive from the State Bank and NAPAS are also implemented quickly," Ms. Doan Hong Nhung shared.

Regarding information security in non-cash payment transactions, Vietcombank representative emphasized that this is an issue that users, payment service providers, and management agencies put first. Security awareness needs to come from many sides, both users and banks.

In addition, service users themselves need to be careful and alert to prevent fraudulent behavior and properly follow the requirements and recommendations of the bank they are using.