Commercial banks are shifting their direction to digital transformation and digital banking

Digital banking is considered an inevitable trend in the 4.0 era, in which the ultimate aims are to scale business efficiency to adapt to the highly competitive environment of commercial banks and, at the same time, expanding financial inclusion. The development of digital banking fosters opportunities for banks to increase revenue and labour productivity, effectively manage their financial resources and receive information, widen networks and partnerships, etc. In fact, the BTCI report shows that up to 50% of customers prefer online services. This is the motivation to push commercial banks into the digital race, penetrate and capitalise on the potential of the digital financial market.

Digitalisation creates both opportunities and challenges for banking sector

It is clear to see that in the past few years, many banks have moved many of their services from offline to online, actively applying advanced technology in management and business, providing innovative products and applying data analytics to optimise processes to enhance the customer experience. As of July 2019, according to the State Bank’s statistics, there are 76 banks providing payment services via internet banking, 41 banks have mobile banking services, 24 banks and 9 organisations have implemented intermediary payment services via QR code and the whole market has more than 50,000 places accepting QR codes. On the other hand, digital banking exposes banks to greater risks from indirect competitors such as non-financial companies and organisations, such as fintech. Furthermore, the difficulties of shifting operating models, data security, human resources and financial capital for information technology are also putting greater weight on banks to find the right direction to market demand.

Therefore, with the advantage of owning an advanced financial and digital technology platform, in December 2019, CIMB made a breakthrough by officially launching OCTO by CIMB offering many attractive utilities for customers. CIMB combines most consumer banking services into one mobile application, including account opening, fund transfers, loan requests and account management.

Recently, CIMB stepped up to partner with Sendo to build a digital loan package that is convenient in application procedures, using an ID card as document, 100% online process, 4-hour to appraisal result, and attractive interest rate of 1.67%/month.

After OCTO by CIMB, the partnership with Sendo is an acceleration in the digitalisation race of CIMB, altogether affirming their vision and market-oriented strategy. CIMB is a "wind of change" in Viet Nam's digital banking market, promising to create many breakthroughs in the future.