Deliberating on the draft Law amending and supplementing several articles of the Law on the State Bank of Vietnam, the Law on Anti-Money Laundering, and the Law on Credit Institutions during local National Assembly group sessions, several lawmakers observed that the proposed modifications to the Law on the State Bank of Vietnam, specifically the clause enabling the central bank to “apply one or more alternative safety metrics compared to statutory levels to fulfill socio-economic development demands”, are rather ambiguous and could invite subjective application in practice.
Deputy Do Duc Hien, representing HCMC, recommended that the drafting agency consider clarifying this mechanism directly within the bill or inserting a provision mandating the Government to prescribe explicit criteria, conditions, and scenarios for adopting alternative safety metrics. He also called for clear rules regarding the timeframe when supervised banking entities remain subject to these measures, supervisory protocols during the application of alternative metrics, and other relevant aspects to guarantee smooth, uniform, and stringent execution.
Deputy Tran Thi Hien, representing Ninh Bình Province, also expressed concern that the underlying concept of “alternative safety metrics” remains vague, making it susceptible to abuse and potentially exposing the financial system to systemic risk. She suggested explicitly specifying whether these ratios would be higher or lower than standard thresholds, while proposing that the Government detail the prerequisites and timelines for their enforcement.
Touching upon the Law on Credit Institutions in a related discussion, Deputy Nguyen Thanh Tung, an HCMC representative and Chairman of the Board of Directors at Vietcombank, analyzed that existing caps on credit growth and statutory safety ratios pose severe difficulties for commercial banks currently undergoing restructuring or grappling with negative equity. “There must be operational flexibility in applying these indicators depending on the practical reality of each individual bank,” the deputy contributed.
Regarding the corporate bond market, Deputy Nguyen Thanh Tung endorsed allowing credit institutions to serve as collateral management agents for corporate bonds. Supporting his argument with practical data, Deputy Nguyen Thanh Tung pointed out that Vietnam’s bond market scale remains remarkably modest at just 10 percent of GDP compared to regional peers, whereas the burden on bank credit remains overwhelmingly high at 145 percent of GDP. Permitting banks to step in will provide reassurance for investors and boost broader market development.
]Turning to the Law on Anti-Money Laundering, as voiced by Deputy Nguyen Thanh Tung, adding provisions that designate crypto-asset service providers as reporting entities is an indispensable step to help lift Vietnam off the Financial Action Task Force’s “grey list.” However, the practical enforcement challenges confronting credit institutions remain immense.
Specifically, these include the daunting tasks of first identifying crypto-asset risks due to their natures of decentralization, cross-border reach, and rapid execution speeds; then staggering technological compliance costs that necessitate deploying AI rather than manual labor; balancing regulatory oversight against customer experience; and fostering inter-agency and international information sharing.
To navigate the hurdles of enforcing anti-money laundering regulations, particularly within the crypto-asset realm, Deputy Nguyen Thanh Tung stated that given the decentralized, cross-border nature and lightning-fast transaction speeds of crypto assets, traditional manual screening methods simply can’t keep up. Consequently, commercial banks must invest heavily in technology, deploying AI to assist human operators in detecting and mitigating cash flow risks.
Banks must also carefully design scientifically grounded internal procedures and regulations to control risks effectively without drawing out transaction times or inconveniencing clients. Simultaneously, they need to strengthen inter-agency coordination and international cooperation. Domestic regulatory agencies and even international partner organizations must maintain seamless coordination to share intelligence and conduct joint supervision as a general rule of thumb.
Contributing feedback on the Law on Anti-Money Laundering, Deputy Tran Thi Hien proposed adding transitional provisions for customer relationships established prior to the law’s effective date of December 1, 2026 to ensure feasible rollout for credit institutions and cushion the blow of sudden compliance costs.
