Customers make transactions at the Vietnam Prosperity Bank branch in Da Nang City. Viet Nam must change its existing training strategy in the finance and banking sector to solve a looking lack of quality in the workforce for the 2015-2020 period. — VNA/VNS Photo Tran Viet

Experts at the conference, entitled "Interest rate management mechanisms and demand for quality workforce", said small to medium-sized banks are already lacking high quality management personnel in their subsidiaries and branches.

According to the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), the number of people working in the finance and banking sector had jumped dramatically from 67,500 in 2000 to 180,000 by the end of 2012.

SBV forecast the sector would need an additional 94,000 high quality workers by 2015 and 130,000 by 2020, heightening the need for a strategic education and training plan to meet demand.

Experts at the conference said most finance and banking staff currently did not have good supporting skills such as IT literacy, foreign languages and communications capabilities.

"When international finance institutes come to Viet Nam, they will bring advanced thinking, technologies and products, but the local workers cannot follow these techniques," said Doctor Pham Huu Hong Thai, deputy head of the Finance and Marketing University.

Thai said Vietnamese finance and banking training was far behind international standards.

Therefore, banks have spent a lot of money hiring foreign specialists and even the State Bank of Viet Nam still needs macro managers capable of conducting research and forecasts, as well as constructing system development strategies.

Southern Commercial Joint Stock Bank Deputy General Director Ngo Minh Chau said competition in attracting talented staff has pushed up wages, with pay for a qualified financial director or administrator ranging from US$2,000-3,000 to US$5,000-7,000 per month.

Chau said a bank general director who is Vietnamese could currently be paid VND200-300 million per month ($10,000-$15,000.), while a foreigner in the same position could be paid around US$50,000 per month.

Most small to medium-sized banks need qualified managers and administrators. In general, leaders of bank branches and transaction offices need to improve their technical and legal knowledge - as well as analysis skills - and their capability of dealing with problems independently.

They now perform only conventional technical jobs and do not have strategic vision in the fields of credit assessment, customer network development, risk administration, investment project administration, competition strategy building and international settlements.

There are also problems related to fresh graduates. According to the Institute of Manpower, Banking and Finance (BTCI), only 50 per cent of the 29,000 students that qualified in 2012 felt satisfied with bank training standards.

In most recruitment cases, it takes the banks three to four months to retrain newly-employed staff. In general, graduates fresh from universities and colleges do not have adequate knowledge of legal issues related to credit institutions nor industrial processes to run chains of a financial and banking system.

They also lack information about how information technology (IT) is applied in lending, assessment, cash payment, customer management, as well as asset and debt asset administration activities.

Change in training needed

Training facilities have mainly operated according to their existing capacity and haven't focused on real market requirements. Many lecturers do not have time to conduct scientific research and update themselves on new legal documents and policies related to the finance and banking sector as they are too busy giving lectures across the country.

Co-operation between training facilities, the Ministry of Education and Training and credit institutions and the State Bank of Viet Nam is vital in making training more practical. This would help to satisfy bank demands for a high quality workforce in the context of international integration and competition with foreign finance and banking institutions.

Master Hoang Van Chon, from Can Tho University, said it was important to make training facilities work closely with financial and credit institutions as this co-operation will help banks develop the workforce they need. — VNS