In response to this reality, the State Bank of Viet Nam has been implementing a range of synchronised solutions to strengthen management, supervision and risk prevention, ensuring system safety and reinforcing public confidence.
Tightening transaction security
Le Van Tuyen, Deputy Director of the Payment Department under the State Bank of Viet Nam, said that the central bank has focused on completing the legal framework to promote cashless payments while ensuring security and safety in payment activities.
The management agency has submitted to the Government a number of important decrees related to cashless payments, controlled regulatory sandbox mechanisms in the banking sector, and Mobile Money. It has also issued circulars providing detailed guidance on payment activities, payment intermediaries, the opening and use of payment accounts, bank card operations, and supervision of important payment systems.
Notably, new regulations require stronger customer authentication. Customers may only conduct electronic payment transactions after their identification documents and biometric information have been fully verified.
For many online transactions, biometric authentication has become mandatory. Acts of abusing payment accounts or e-wallets for illegal purposes will be subject to penalties. These regulations help limit impersonation and the use of false information, thereby enhancing transparency across the entire system.
Alongside institutional improvements, the banking sector has vigorously implemented customer data cleansing in coordination with the Ministry of Public Security. Through connection to and exploitation of the national population database, chip-based citizen identity cards and the VNeID electronic identification application, credit institutions have gradually verified customer information accurately and eliminated accounts not registered under the rightful owners.
Le Hoang Chinh Quang, Director General of the Information Technology Department under the State Bank of Viet Nam, said that by April 2026, the entire sector had verified biometric information for nearly 155 million customer records, including more than 153 million individual customers and more than 1.9 million organisational customers. Authentication through chip-based citizen identity cards and VNeID has also been expanded at many credit institutions and payment intermediaries.
In addition, the anti-money laundering system has cleansed all 154 million accounts and 36 million customer records. The National Credit Information Centre has also verified tens of millions of records, contributing to improving the quality of data across the sector. These results not only enhance management efficiency but also directly reduce fraud risks in payment activities.
Coordinating to prevent fraud early
In the context of increasing high-tech crime, the need for coordination between the banking sector and relevant ministries and agencies has become more urgent. In practice, close cooperation has delivered clear results in protecting people’s assets.
Recently, in Lai Chau, Agribank staff detected unusual signs when a customer attempted to withdraw money and promptly alerted the police, successfully preventing a sophisticated fraud case and helping the customer avoid significant losses. Beyond situational responses, banks have also proactively deployed technological solutions. Agribank’s suspicious transaction warning system has recorded more than 200,000 alerts, while suspending over 91,000 risky transactions and preventing transactions worth more than 360 billion VND.
These results demonstrate that without inter-agency coordination mechanisms, isolated efforts would struggle to achieve maximum effectiveness. The State Bank of Viet Nam has coordinated with the Ministry of Public Security to implement Plan No. 01 on exploiting population data for customer authentication. Following the Government’s direction in Official Dispatch No. 29/CD-TTg on preventing and combating high-tech crime, relevant agencies are comparing information between mobile subscriber owners and payment account holders, combined with a comprehensive review of bank accounts and SIM cards. This data comparison and synchronisation helps promptly detect and prevent the use of false information for fraudulent transactions.
Alongside institutional and data-related solutions, the State Bank of Viet Nam has put into operation the SIMO information system supporting management, supervision and fraud-risk prevention in payment activities. The system allows participating organisations to share information on suspicious accounts, enabling banks to promptly take preventive measures or require additional authentication before transactions are carried out.
According to figures as of April 12, the system had issued warnings to more than 3.7 million customer transactions. Of these, more than 1.2 million customers stopped or cancelled transactions after receiving alerts, with a total transaction value of nearly 4.17 trillion VND.
Enhancing transparency in payments cannot rely on a single solution alone, but requires coordinated efforts involving legal improvements, data cleansing, technological applications and stronger inter-agency cooperation. The solutions currently being implemented have made important contributions to ensuring transaction safety, reducing risks and protecting customer rights, thereby laying a foundation for the sustainable development of cashless payments in Viet Nam.
In the coming period, alongside continuing to improve mechanisms, policies and supervisory effectiveness, raising public awareness of safe payment service usage will be an important factor in building a transparent and trustworthy payment environment.
