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The State Bank of Vietnam has released information regarding the issuance and implementation of Decision No. 2345/QD-NHNN dated December 18, 2023 (Decision 2345) on the deployment of security and safety measures for online and bank card payments (effective from July 1, 2024).
According to the State Bank, under Decision 2345, from July 1, 2024, all banks and payment intermediaries will be required to apply a unified policy for individual customers when transactions exceed VND 10 million or the total daily transactions exceed VND 20 million. In these cases, the biometric data (face) of the person performing the transaction must be checked to match the face of the account holder, verified against the national database on population or the electronic chip-attached Citizen Identification Card issued by the Ministry of Public Security.
Additionally, before an individual customer makes a transaction for the first time using Mobile Banking or before making a transaction on a different device than the one used for the most recent Mobile Banking transaction, the customer must re-authenticate their biometric identifiers.
The purpose of issuing Decision 2345 is to ensure that online banking transactions are performed by the account holder, protecting customers and contributing to the reduction of fraud and theft of customer assets. It also aims to prevent the rental, borrowing, and buying and selling of payment accounts and e-wallets for illegal purposes.
The nature of the solutions stipulated in Decision No. 2345 is to verify that the account holder’s information matches the information on the Citizen Identification Card (CCCD) issued by the Ministry of Public Security or the national database on the population, eliminating fake, non-owner, and illegal accounts. This enables credit institutions to accurately identify and verify customers during the payment process.
According to statistics from the State Bank, about 70% of individual customer payment transactions in Vietnam are worth less than VND 1 million, and transactions over VND 10 million account for only about 11% of the total transactions. Only a small fraction, less than 1%, of customers have daily transactions exceeding VND 20 million. Therefore, biometric authentication will not significantly impact users’ payment transactions.
Additionally, as of the end of 2023, the Ministry of Public Security had issued over 84.7 million chip-attached CCCDs and 70.2 million VNeID accounts, ensuring “accurate, complete, clean, and up-to-date” data. This data serves as a crucial input for the banking industry to implement identification and verification of customers accurately.
For customers who do not have a chip-attached CCCD (those with a valid CCCD or ID card as per legal regulations) or are foreign nationals or use a phone that does not support NFC, to perform online transactions exceeding VND 10 million, the State Bank emphasizes that “customers only need to register their biometric data once at the bank counter. After that, customers can make transactions through Mobile Banking/Internet Banking without having to visit the counter.”
The State Bank also added that in the future, when the Ministry of Public Security provides electronic identification and authentication services, banks will integrate Mobile Banking/Internet Banking applications with the electronic identification and authentication system. This will allow customers to register their biometric data through the electronic identification account provided by the Ministry of Public Security.
