The banking and finance sector should define staff training restructure and scale to meet the industry's development, said an official from the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV).

At a regional conference on aligning human resources to improve the competitiveness of the finance industry held in Hanoi on October 10, Tran Huu Thang, Deputy Director of the SBV’s Human Resources Department said human resources were one of the most vital aspects of the sector, especially in the overall restructuring process to enhance its competitiveness, creating a sustainable and transparent foundation.

He said the number of people who were specialised in the banking sector was lower than other sectors, despite the high number working in the industry.

Statistics showed that the percentage of people who were post-graduates in the sector accounted for 1.35 percent, while the average was 1.75 percent.

By the end of 2010, the sector employed more than 175,000 people with a growth rate of 10 percent in the period of 2000-10, 7.2 percent higher than the average economic growth.

He added that human resources had not been well used. For example, the central bank lacked economic specialists who had the capacity to research, forecast and build strategies to develop the banking system.

"The sector's human resources have not met the requirements of global integration as we lack useful tools to measure human management such as a set of career standards," he said.

The deputy said the sector also faced brain-drain because of inadequate and inappropriate policies.

Stephen Choo, Haygroup's director and regional head of Insight of ASEAN, said universities had succeeded in providing enough people for the sector, but the quality issue should be reviewed.

He said banks and universities should work together to clarify what knowledge was needed to fill the gap between education and reality.-VNA