Rushing to meet the deadline

Currently, commercial banks are rushing to complete the collection of customers' biometric data to meet the requirements of the State Bank.

At TPBank , this bank said it started collecting and standardizing customer data from April 2024, with an average of 10,000 face and ID card samples updated into the database every day from all channels (Mobile Banking, Internet Banking, at the counter, and LiveBank 24/7).

To date, TPBank has become one of the first banks to comply with 100% of Decision 2345 on biometric authentication in high-value transactions with all customers, before the deadline of July 1.

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Illustration photo (NCB).

At Agribank , the bank is in the group with the largest number of online transactions in the system with about 254 thousand online transactions/day, accounting for 91.97% of the bank's total transactions.

Agribank said it has built a cleaned biometric database after comparing the collected biometric data with the national population database managed by the Ministry of Public Security .

In addition, the bank also reviews existing customer data, updates and cleans customer data to prevent fraud risks; deploys a centralized limit management module and allows transaction channels to look up the total limit status for customers' payment accounts and other information according to Decision 2345.

In addition, in June 2024, the entire authentication system connected online with the Ministry of Public Security was also put into operation by Agribank, and authentication applications were also completed to be ready to apply new regulations from July 2024.

Struggling with facial authentication

However, not all customers can easily register for facial authentication with banking applications. The common problem of banks today is that not all devices support reading chip information on CCCD, and some mobile devices are even rejected by the application at the first step.

Speaking with VietNamNet, Ms. Nguyen Thi Phuong - Deputy General Director of Agribank said that in recent days, the board of directors and specialized departments of Agribank have also received feedback from users about difficulties in registering for facial authentication.

Agribank is urgently looking for technological solutions and will have specific instructions on June 26-27 to promptly support customers.

“My family is currently struggling to implement this,” said the Deputy General Director of Agribank. “Currently, everyone is calculating to design supporting software. I have also discussed with the bank’s technical department and will have a specific support solution this week.”

It is known that the technical solutions of banks are the same, so this is a common problem of all banks, not just of any bank.

For now, customers making transactions under 10 million VND/transaction and under 20 million VND/day will not be affected.

As someone who regularly has to make money transfer transactions on mobile applications, Mr. Vu Minh Khue (Hoang Mai district, Hanoi), said that he currently owns payment accounts at 4 different customer banks including VietinBank, BIDV, Agribank and MB.

Sharing with VietNamNet about his actual experience when performing biometric registration with the bank, Mr. Khue said that after being instructed to register his face with the VietinBank iPay application, the application asked him to take a photo of his ID card and a portrait photo before performing chip authentication on the ID card.

However, he could not take a photo of his CCCD right from the first step because the application notified “The customer's device is not valid for face collection. Please change the device or contact the nearest Branch/Transaction Office.”

“This makes me a bit disappointed because the mobile phone I am using is a Redmi 13C purchased new since the beginning of April 2024. This is considered the latest model of Redmi distributed in the Vietnamese market. Meanwhile, the bank did not specify which new phones are compatible,” said Mr. Khue.

In BIDV's application, after checking the box confirming that he has read it, agreeing to the general terms and conditions of transactions and notes when installing and using the service, Mr. Khue clicked on the "Install and collect" button, then was asked to select the authentication document (CCCD with chip).

After clicking the “Continue” button to take a photo of the chip-embedded ID card, the bank requires you to select the correct type of document for successful authentication. However, after confirming, the application displays a message “Please use a device that supports reading Chip information on the ID card.” This means that the Redme 13C device is not approved by the bank.

Trying with Agribank's application, Mr. Khue received a notification that the device does not support reading NFC information.

However, with the same device, he had no problem with biometric authentication at MB Bank's application.

However, not all customers find it easy to register for facial authentication with MB's application. Ms. Le Ngoc Diep (Thach That, Hanoi), an MB customer, said: "I struggled for a while but could not register because the application displayed the message "Please register for eKYC to be able to set up facial authentication method. Only when the application's new software was updated was the authentication successful."

However, Ms. Diep also expressed her concern that up to now, Bac A Commercial Joint Stock Bank (where she opened an account) still has not had any announcement about this.

According to Agribank's recommendation, if customers encounter difficulties in the process of registering for facial authentication, they can call the hotline or go to the bank's transaction points for direct support.

According to VietNamNet's research, many customers failed to register for facial authentication, so they went to bank transaction points for support. According to Agribank, some branches have successfully supported customers. In fact, when operating on the phone, some people do it very easily, but there are also devices that have problems, each person has a different problem.

Leasing or lending accounts may be subject to criminal prosecution.

In order to ensure the safety of payment account operations and avoid cases where payment accounts are registered for unwanted services and information is exploited by criminals to commit crimes, banks advise customers not to rent or lend payment accounts (according to Point h, Clause 2, Article 5, Circular 23/2014/TT-NHNN).

Opening a payment account and leasing or lending is a violation of the law and may result in criminal prosecution.

The person who leases or lends payment accounts will be administratively sanctioned by the competent authority according to Clause 15, Article 1 of Decree 143/2021/ND-CP with a fine of VND 40 million to VND 100 million (if not yet to the extent of being prosecuted for criminal liability).

Banks have confirmed that they will consider and possibly stop providing online banking services and account services for leased and loaned accounts.

Previously, on June 13, 2024, the State Bank issued Document No. 4932/NHNN-TT to the People's Committees of provinces and cities requesting coordination to prevent the buying and selling of payment accounts of students.