Nguyen Quang Hung, former deputy director of the State Bank of Viet Nam’s Information Technology Department, has been appointed general director of the National Payment Corporation of Viet Nam (Napas).

The position had been left vacant since June 2017 after the former general director, Nguyen Tu Anh, was elected chairwoman of Napas’ management board for 2015-20 period.

Deputy Governor of the State Bank of Viet Nam Nguyen Kim Anh at a recent conference to implement Napas’ tasks for 2019 urged the company to focus on promoting the development of electronic payment as well as contributing to the provision of online public services in the country.

Kim Anh said Napas should provide support for banks to convert magnetic cards into chip cards.

Kim Anh also urged the company to develop an automated clearing house and apply new technologies such as Blockchain, Big Data and QR to provide new payment solutions.

A Napas report showed that the number of transactions conducted via its system increased by more than 45 per cent in 2018 over the previous year with the total value reaching more than VND1.7 quadrillion (US$74 billion), a rise of 169 per cent.

Napas, licensed to provide financial switching services and electronic clearing services in Viet Nam, is currently administering and operating a switching system interconnected with more than 17,000 ATMs, 270,000 POS machines, and 300 electronic payment companies in the fields of aviation, telecommunications, hotels and tourism, serving over 100 million cardholders of 46 domestic and international commercial banks. — VNS