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growing over 100% annually due to the unified VietQR standard (SBV, 2024b). Many
banks now conduct over 90% of transactions digitally (SBV, 2024b).
By end-2024, approximately 204.5 million individual payment accounts existed
nationwide (SBV, 2024b). Mobile Money reached over 10.2 million accounts, with 72%
concentrated in rural and remote areas - demonstrating the geographic reach of digital
infrastructure beyond traditional branch networks (SBV, 2024b). Implementation of
Project 06 (Prime Minister’s Decision No. 06/QD-TTg, 2022), integrating the national
population database with bank eKYC operations, reduced new-customer onboarding time
from several days to minutes - an institutionally significant catalyst for financial inclusion.
3.3. Digital human capital: foundation and bottleneck
Despite impressive infrastructure investment growth, IT human capital remains a
critical bottleneck for digital economic transformation in banking. According to the
Vietnam ICT Index, the average ratio of dedicated IT staff to total employees stood at
2.4% in 2018–2020 (MIC, 2018–2020), significantly below the ASEAN benchmark of 4–6%
and the above-8% level at leading digital banks in Singapore and South Korea (World Bank,
2022). By 2022, wide variation had emerged: Techcombank reached 11.1%, BIDV 3.2%,
and Nam A Bank 3.8% (MIC, 2022).
Table 3. IT Human capital indicators in Vietnam's banking sector, 2018–2024
Indicator 2018–2020 2022 2024 (estimated)

IT staff / total employees, industry 2.4% 2.4–11.1%* ~3–12%*
average
Cybersecurity staff / total employees 0.10% 0.1–0.7% ~0.18%

IT staff with international certifications 10.3% 8–43%* ~45%
(AWS, Azure, CISSP…)
Banking IT recruitment demand - - 15–18%
(annual growth)
Note: *Significant variation across individual banks. Source: MIC (2018–2022).
According to industry labour market surveys and the Vietnam ICT Index, banking IT
recruitment demand grew at 15–18% per year over 2018–2024, concentrated in
cybersecurity, big data, cloud computing, and AI (MIC, 2018–2024). The share of IT staff
holding international certifications rose substantially, with the majority of open IT
positions requiring cloud or AI skills (Le et al., 2025). SBV Decision No. 2069/QD-NHNN
(2024) on digital workforce development provided the legal basis for standardising digital
competency requirements across the banking sector.
3.4. Financial performance: evidence on the digital investment–performance
nexus
Descriptive comparison across the four bank clusters reveals consistent
performance differentiation aligned with IT investment intensity, with the primary
transmission channel being CIR improvement through the structural shift from costly
branch counters to low-cost digital channels (Vives, 2019). Table 4 summarises key
indicators by cluster.

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