Illustrative photo (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) – The National Electronic AuthenticationCentre (NEAC), Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC), Vietnam BanksAssociation and Certificate Authority and Digital Transaction Club (VCDC) onOctober 17 held a workshop on the role of personal digital signatures in onlinepayment.

Speaking at the event, MIC Deputy Minister Nguyen Huy Dung saidthat Vietnam has identified three pillars of national digital transformation -digital government, digital economy and digital society. All the three pillars arenot possible without digital citizens. He said that forming digital citizensand a digital society needs basic characteristics. Particularly, each household has fibre-opticbroadband, while each citizen needs to have a smartphone, e-ID, a digital payment account, anonline public service account, and basic information security software.

Besides, digital citizens need to be equipped withbasic digital skills to use services in the digital environment, and have their personal digital signature to perform digitaltransactions, Dung said, emphasising that a personal digital signature is thefinal “piece of the puzzle” to complete a basic version of digital citizenshipin the cyber environment.

Digital signatures are a solution with its legality recognisedby many countries around the world including Vietnam.

That is atechnology solution in online transactions, especially in the financeand e-banking areas, he said, adding that the Law on ElectronicTransaction 2023 with regulations on digital signatures, that will takeeffect from July next year, will facilitate the applicaiton of digitalsignatures in the cyber environment.

Vice Chairman and GeneralSecretary of the Vietnam BanksAssociation Nguyen Quoc Hung said that in Vietnam, digital signaturesare mainly used in intra-bank transactions or transactions ofbusinesses, and yet to be applied to individualcustomers.

According to Hung, individual customers are in the groupthat takes the majority of transactions in the banking industry.

Preliminary reports from banks in Vietnam showed that only 5%of total customers own and are using digital signatures, mostly because of thehigh cost of personal digital signatures, Hung said.

To developdigital signatures, service ﷽providers need toenhance safety and security in online payments and bank card payments.Promotingonline payments, converting all direct payment activities to the cyberenvironment, and increasing communications about the Law on ElectronicTransactions 2023 are also needed, heard the workshop./.