A customer using VNDirect Securities Corp's eKYC platform. — Photo courtesy of VNDirect Securities

VNDirect Securities Corporation has launched an electronic platform to help customers make secure and fast identification without meeting the teller directly.

With the new the solution, named Electronic Know Your Customers (eKYC), it will take only five minutes to clarify their accounts after the registration on internet-connected devices such as smartphones and laptops.

The solution aims to simplify paperwork and procedures for both clients and the company, especially those that are busy and have no time to travel back and forth between their offices and VNDirect, the company said in a statement.

“As the COVID-19 pandemic is expanding in various localities, opening and clarifying accounts via eKYC will minimise the risk of community transmission and help the Vietnamese defeat the virus spread,” VNDirect said.

The Vietnamese securities market is a young industry with the percentage of active accounts/total population remaining low compared to more-developed markets.

By the end of 2020, the percentage is expected to reach 3 per cent, much lower in comparison to the rare of 50-60 per cent in the US and Europe.

The launch of the eKYC is part of VNDirect’s strategy to tap young customers, who are well-skilled at technology, as the development of technologies make securities trading more convenient.

According to the Digital Business Division, VNDirect in 2019 digitalised 60 per cent of all working modules. “The eKYC solution will be the key to the company’s plan to serve a larger number of individual customers in 2020.”

According to the Vietnam Securities Depository (VSD), the total number of new accounts opened by Vietnamese investors was more than 192,400.

In the seven-month period, total new individual accounts opened at VNDirect was nearly 66,500 – up 94 per cent on-year and accounting for 34 per cent of the market’s total. — VNS