Telecom group Viettel's Bankplus has been the winner of the gold award at the 11th Annual 2016 IT World Awards held in San Francisco yesterday. This is the first time a Vietnamese IT product has been honoured with the prestigious award.


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Viettel's representatives receive the awards. This is the first time Viet Nam has won the prize at the IT World Awards.


Its two applications of Antispam and BCCS 2.0 were also given bronze awards. This has been the first year Viettel competed at the awards in the US – the world biggest IT incubator. It means that Vietnamese IT products could compete with other competitors in the world market.

The online money transfers and payments via mobile phones, Bankplus also won the award for the best financial service in the Asia-Pacific region held by MasterCard for its outstanding results in promoting e-payments.

The products aimed to please Viettel's customers. They were highly valued by specialists in Silicon Valley due to their application, creativity and large number of users.

Bankplus has been considered Viettel's centrepiece as the application allows customers to open a bank account on mobile phones without internet connection. There are around three million customers using the application with US$150 million in transactions in the system. Bankplus is currently the only mobile banking service in the world allowing connection to several banks in one application. Bankplus has connected up to 16 banks, accounting for 95 per cent of total individual banking accounts in Việt Nam. The application has also been launched in Cambodia, Tanzania and Mozambique.

Rake Narang, editor-in-chief of Network Product Guide and head of IT World Award's organising board said they sought outstanding products from all companies in the world.

"I think that Việt Nam has a lot of potential for IT development as the country has won awards on its debut. You should be confident to introduce your products to the whole world if they are excellent. Companies only need new ideas and creations to develop technologies and sell it to the world," he said.

The award aims to honour outstanding achievements in the IT sector. This year's awards had the participation of big groups such as Samsung, Dell, Cisco, Ultimate Software and SAP.

 

Viettel pilots 4G int’l roaming service

Telecom group Viettel said it has started a pilot scheme to provide international roaming service for a selected group of Vietnamese 4G subscribers to make phone calls back home from countries where 4G networks are available.

Viettel’s customers who have phones with 4G SIM cards can use the roaming service. The group will contact subscribers who frequently travel overseas and use roaming services in South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, the U.S. and Russia to guide them how to shift to its 4G service.

The trial period is scheduled to last three months and Viettel will later expand the roaming service coverage by allowing all subscribers to register for it. Before registering, customers must have phones compatible with 4G technology and 4G SIM cards distributed by Viettel.

The mobile carrier currently charges VND25,000 on a shift to a 4G SIM card.

To better control roaming charges, Viettel offers free app Viettel Roaming at www.roaming.vn/app for customers to download to phones using Android or iOS operating system. The tool helps customers monitor their charges of the last three months.

VNS/SGT