The Bank for Investment and Development of Viet Nam (BIDV), one of the largest in the country, was named the Best Retail Bank in Viet Nam at The Asian Banker Viet Nam Country Awards.

The award ceremony was held in conjunction with The Future of Finance Viet Nam, an annual gathering for senior decision makers in the financial services industry, in Ha Noi, on January 10.

Growing its market share of retail deposits to 17 per cent, BIDV continues to grow its customer base at an impressive annual average rate of 11 per cent.

In 2018, the bank launched BIDV e-zone, its digital lab which reduced the transaction processing time to 7 minutes from 42 minutes. BIDV is also one of the first banks to implement virtual cards, gradually replacing physical cards by co-operating with Samsung Pay for BIDV Samsung Pay.

Many other banks were also honoured at the event.

Vietcombank received the award for Best Mobile Initiative, Application or Programme. The bank has leveraged AI technology to provide customers with a virtual assistant and help users request transactions through voice recognition as well as text messaging via its mobile app.

VietinBank won the Best Mobile Payments Service Award. Its QR-based payment mode comes entrusted with FingerPrint and FaceID biometric security features. VietinBank’s number of monthly transactions for its mobile payment service grew 60 per cent in 2018.

MOMO was recognised as Digital Wallet of the Year. With the largest e-wallet user base in the Viet Namese market, MOMO has been quick to scale up its mobile wallet and payment services via pursuing expansion opportunities in collaboration with 15 top-tier banks, 14 consumer finance institutions and 7 big insurance companies.

Asia Commercial Bank was recognised as Best Cloud Based Initiative, Application or Programme.

Saigon Commercial Bank received the Deposit Product of the Year Award. The bank’s short-term deposit certificate product helped customers maximise returns on their savings and flexibility to manage cash flows.

Credit Card Product of the Year was awarded to SeABank for “SeALady”, the only credit card product in the market exclusively affiliated to a charity programme.

FE CREDIT was awarded the Consumer Finance Product of the Year Award. FE CREDIT is first in the local market to implement a 100 per cent digital lending process in granting loans for the purchase of digital devices and household appliances. — VNS