At a press conference announcing Vietnam Card Day 2024 on the morning of September 26th, Mr. Pham Anh Tuan, Director of the Payment Department of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), stated that by mid-September 2024, approximately 38 million bank accounts had had their biometric data collected, including nearly 4 million e-wallets.

Most customers who make money transfers exceeding 10 million VND per transaction or total transactions exceeding 20 million VND per day have registered their biometric information to verify the account holder's identity before making transactions, as required by Decision 2345 of the State Bank of Vietnam.

Mr. Tuan reiterated that the objective of Decision 2345 is to ensure that accounts are registered in the account holder's name when performing services related to accounts, cards, and wallets. This aims to help limit fraudulent money transfers to accounts that are not registered in the account holder's name, which are rented, purchased, or borrowed from others.

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Biometric data has been collected from 38 million accounts. Photo: Hoang Ha.

After two months of implementation, the average number of transactions is approximately over 25 million transactions per day. Compared to the average number of transactions before July 1, 2024, the number of transactions has remained almost unchanged.

“Decision 2345 has yielded extremely positive results, with the number of fraud cases after July 1st dropping to only 700, a 50% reduction; the number of accounts involved in fraud was only 682, a 72% decrease compared to the average number in the first seven months of the year,” Mr. Pham Anh Tuan shared.

The above results show a very positive impact, with Decision 2345 contributing significantly to limiting payment fraud.

The Director of the Payment Department expressed hope that payment service providers and payment intermediaries would continue to collect biometric data and verify the biometric data stored in the chip-embedded citizen identification card.

These provisions are stipulated in Circular 17 of the State Bank of Vietnam on the opening and use of payment accounts, Circular 18 on bank card operations, and Circular 40 on payment intermediary activities.

Accordingly, from January 1, 2025, individual customers whose biometric information has not been collected by credit institutions or payment intermediaries will only be able to transfer money directly at bank branches.

"With the deadline approaching, credit institutions and payment intermediaries are urgently pushing this forward," Mr. Tuan noted.

Mr. Pham Anh Tuan informed that in October, the State Bank of Vietnam will issue a circular replacing Circular 35 on security and safety in online transactions. This circular will replace Decision 2345 and will have legal validity, raising the level of compliance to a higher level within the system of legal documents.

However, the Director of the Payment Department stated that not all transactions require biometric authentication. Nevertheless, the conditions for conducting transactions electronically help payment service providers and payment intermediaries verify their data repositories, ensuring that customers receiving services electronically are verified as legitimate individuals.

"We also want to convey the message to the public that customers can request the bank to check and register biometric authentication at any time. This ensures the rights of the customers themselves and helps to reduce fraud and scams in payments."