Target 70% of adult population has bank account

By 2020, 70% of the adult population will have bank accounts; there will be at least 20 branches and transaction offices per 100,000 adult population; there will be about 30,000 ATMs (40 machines per 100,000 adult population); 300,000 POS (400 POS per 100,000 adult population); about 15% of commercial bank branches and transaction offices will be opened in rural areas; about 35-40% of adults in rural areas will have savings in credit institutions...

These are the goals in the "Project to improve access to banking services for the economy" of the State Bank.

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According to assessment, banking products and services in Vietnam have developed in diversity and richness, with some products catching up with the modern level of the world.

Accordingly, the entire banking system now has 9,787 branches and transaction offices; 16,937 ATMs, 222,831 POS; over 60 credit institutions applying Internet banking; 35 credit institutions have used mobile banking.

According to assessment, banking products and services in Vietnam have developed in diversity and richness, with some products catching up with the modern level of the world.

As a result, the entire system had capital of over 6 million billion VND, equal to 144% of GDP; outstanding debt of 4.66 million billion VND, equal to 111% of GDP, as of the end of 2015.

Also by the end of 2015, the entire system had 99.52 million cards, with a transaction value of 230.6 trillion VND; 37/44 commercial banks had deployed e-wallets; asset management and financial consulting had initially developed.

The quality of banking products and services has been improved, modernized, convenient, reduced procedures and transaction costs, and there are 24/7 automatic banking products and services.

The level of banking service usage in Vietnam has also increased sharply, in which personal accounts increased sharply with 36.77 million accounts at the end of 2015, 15 times higher than in 2004.

20.67% of adults in rural areas have loans from financial institutions; Internet payments increase by 30-50% per year, currently there are about 2 million customers using this service; payments via mobile phones reach about 700,000 VND/person/month.

The development and expansion of banking services, along with the increased level of service usage as above, has helped reduce the proportion of cash in total means of payment from 18% (2005) to about 11% today.

However, according to the assessment at the above conference, there are still difficulties that the banking system needs to improve.

That is, the rate of non-credit service fees is still modest; the burden of providing capital for the economy still falls on the banking system and needs to be shared from the stock market and insurance market; the level of service access of residents and businesses is not uniform by geographical area as well as business scale.

Accordingly, the project to improve access to banking services for the economy, which the Prime Minister has just issued, has identified eight specific goals to be achieved by 2020.

That is, by 2020, 70% of the adult population will have bank accounts; there will be at least 20 branches and transaction offices/100,000 adult population; there will be about 30,000 ATMs (40 machines/100,000 adult population); 300,000 POS (400 POS/100,000 adult population); about 15% of commercial bank branches and transaction offices will be opened in rural areas; about 35-40% of adults in rural areas will have savings at credit institutions.

And two more major goals are that by 2020, about 50-60% of small and medium-sized enterprises in operation will have access to credit; credit institutions will double the proportion of income from non-credit service activities.

According to Hai Van/vneconomy