Some 16.6 million banking account owners completed biometric verification, with facial recognition, as of July 3, after three days the new regulation comes into effect, according to Deputy Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) Pham Tien Dung.

The central bank started to launch the biometric verification to finalise online banking transactions of VND10 million ($391) or more as part of measures on safety and security in online banking service provision to better protect customers, he said at a conference held in Hanoi on July 4 to review the implementation of the new regulation.

There are currently over 180 million personal payment banking accounts nationwide.

More than 87% of the nation’s adults have payment accounts at banks. Many banks have more than 95% of transactions conducted via digital channels.

The whole banking system carried out an average of 23 million transactions per day, including 1.9 million transactions worth of VND10 million or more, equivalent to 8.2% of the total.