Country Update Vietnam AML 2023

1. COUNTRY UPDATE-Vietnam: AML
Published 12 September 2023 by Dr. Oliver Massmann, Duane Morris Vietnam LLC
Member of Financial Action Task Force (FATF)? No, Vietnam is currently not a
member of FATF.
Vietnam is a member of the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG).
For more information about the assessment of the implementation of anti-money
laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) measures in Vietnam, please
consult the APG website.
On FATF Blacklist? No.
Member of Egmont? No.
ML background in region
Overview of country risks
Vietnam's deeper integration into the regional and world's economy for the past few
years has been a great opportunity for international money laundering crimes. However,
money laundering activities only become clearly visible recently though bank accounts
opening, securities trading, gambling, illegal transfer of foreign currencies out of the
country, use of credit cards, etc.
Combating money laundering becomes one of the top concerns, not only for the State
Bank of Vietnam, but also other relevant authorities in Vietnam. According to a report of
the State Bank of Vietnam, in 2012, suspicious transactions had a total value of
VND51,000 billion, while in 2013 it was VND79,000 billion and in 2014, the value went
up to VND119,000 billion. This shows an increasing and alarming number of
transactions suspicious of money laundering. We note that the Law on Anti-money
Laundering took effect on January 1, 2013.
However, it seems that the anti-money laundering legal framework is still not sufficient,
guiding implementation remains unclear, awareness of credit institutions of money
laundering is low, ability to detect money laundering activities is weak, information
technology in anti-money laundering activities is not sufficient, and especially
punishment regime for violating acts of the AML is only formalistic. The government,
especially the State Bank of Vietnam, is strongly recommended to tighten their
regulations in this sector.
Key directives/Legislative framework
Law on Prevention of and Anti Money Laundering No. 14/2022/QH15, issued by the
National Assembly on November 15, 2022 (AML);
• Decree No. 19/2023/ND-CP dated April 28, 2023 issued by the Government on
detailing the implementation of certain provisions of the AML (Decree 19);
• Decree No. 88/2019/ND-CP dated November 14, 2019 issued by the
Government on sanctions for administrative violations against currency and
banking legal regulations (Decree 88), amended by Decree 143/2021/NĐ-CP;

2. • Decision No. 20/2013/QD-TTg dated April 18, 2013 of the Prime Minister on
determination of high value transactions subject to report obligation (Decision
20);
• Circular No. 09/2023/TT-NHNN on guiding the implementation of certain
regulations on anti- money laundering, issued by the State Bank of Vietnam on
July 28, 2023; and
• Penal Code No. 100/2015/QH13 issued by the National Assembly on November
27, 2015, as amended by Law No. 12/2017/QH14 dated June 20, 2017 (Penal
Code 2017). Penal Code 2017 became effective January 1, 2018.
Who are the regulators/monitoring authorities
Who are affected/reporting entities?
The following state authorities are responsible for reporting, preventing, and fighting
against money laundering activities:
• SBV is mainly responsible to the Government for state administering the
implementation of AML regulations;
• Ministry of Public Security is responsible for collecting, receiving and investigating
information of money laundering related crimes;
• Ministry of National Defence is responsible for exchanging information and
documents on money laundering activities aimed at financing for proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction in Vietnam and foreign countries with the State
Bank of Vietnam.
• Ministry of Finance is responsible for implementing AML measures in insurance
business, securities sector, accounting service, prize-winning games and
casinos, lottery, betting and other service sectors under the state management of
the Ministry of Finance;
• Ministry of Construction is responsible for implementing AML measures in real
estate business sector, except real estate leasing, subleasing and real estate
consulting services;
• Ministry of Justice is responsible for implementing AML measures applicable to
the notary public and law practising sectors;
• Ministry of Industry and Trade is responsible for implementing AML measures
applicable to trading in precious metals and gems sectors, except for trading in
gold bars and gold jewellery and fine arts.
• Ministry of Planning and Investment is responsible for implementing AML
measures applicable to the sectors under its management.
• Ministry of Home Affairs is responsible for implementing AML measures
applicable to associations, social funds, charity funds and religious institutions.

3. • Ministry of Foreign Affairs is responsible for implementing AML measures
applicable to foreign non-governmental organizations.
• Ministry of Information and Communications is responsible for implementing AML
measures applicable to telecommunications or Internet network-based game
business sector.
• The People's Procuracy and the People's Court coordinate with other agencies in
the investigation, prosecution, and resolution of money laundering crimes;
• People's Committees at all levels are responsible for conducting legal training on
anti-money laundering in the province, co-ordinating with state authorities to
implement policies, strategies, and plans to prevent and fight money laundering;
and
• The Anti-Money Laundering Steering Committee is responsible for assisting the
Prime Minister in preparing strategy, plans, policies and programs in the process
of preventing and fighting against money laundering:
o Client acceptance policy;
o Processes and procedures to identify clients, verify and update client
information;
o Transactions which must be reported;
o The process of review, detection, handling and reporting of suspicious
transactions; the way to communicate with the clients who make
suspicious transaction;
o Information keeping and security;
o Applying temporary measures and principles of handling the cases of
transaction delay;
o Reporting and information supply regime to the State Bank of Vietnam and
the competent state agencies;
o Professional training on the prevention of and combating money
laundering;
o Internally controlling and auditing the compliance with the policies,
regulations, processes and procedures related to the prevention of and
combating money laundering, responsibilities of each individual and
division in the implementation of internal rules in the prevention of and
combating money laundering.
For financial institutions
• The clients open accounts or set up transactions with the financial institutions for
the first time;

4. • The clients do not have a bank account or make no transactions for the past 6
months or deposit, withdraw or make a bank transfer of at least VND
400,000,000, or a foreign-currency amount of equal or greater value per day,
except for final settlements or withdrawals of savings interest, credit card debt
repayments, repayments of loans to financial institutions, instalment payments
registered with financial institutions, withdrawals of profits from securities or bond
investment portfolios ;
• There are doubts about transaction or the parties concerned in transactions are
related to the money laundering;
• There are doubts about the accuracy or completeness of the clients identification
information previously collected.
• For relevant non-financial institutions or individuals:
• Doing business in prize-winning games, including prize-awarding electronic
games; telecommunications network-based games, Internet-based games;
casinos; lottery tickets: clients implementing high value transactions (i.e.¸ over
VND70 million per day);
• Doing real estate business and management services, except for real property
leasing, subleasing, and consulting services: when providing these services to
the buyer, purchaser and asset owner;
• Trading in precious metals and stones: when clients performing the sale and
purchase transaction in cash of precious metals and stones with value of over
VND400 million per day;
• Providing legal agreement services: when acting on behalf of the customer to
perform a transaction related to establishment, administration or management of
legal agreements;
• Providing services of establishment, management and executive of enterprise;
supplying registration office, address or place of business; supplying services of
company representative : clients requesting such services;
• Providing services of director and secretary provision of the enterprise to a third
party: third party and director / secretary to such director;
Legal requirements for KYC
Customer due diligence
Application of measures to identify clients are required depend on the results of money-
laundering risk assessment. Procedures for management of money laundering risks
cover classification of customers by low, medium and high level of risk. In particular, the
abovementioned services providers/entities must update the client identification
information on a regular basis during the period of having relations with the clients.
In addition, clients must also be classified into different groups, product and services
used, their place of residence or headquarter based on different risk exposure levels.

5. Reporting requirements/obligations
Recordkeeping
Information, documents, records relating to customer identification, results of the
reporting entity’s analysis and assessment of customers and/or reporting transactions
and other related documents must be kept for at least five years from closing date of the
transaction or the date of account closure or the reporting date. Reports of high value
transactions (i.e., from VND400 million), suspicious transactions and transactions of
electronic money transfer exceeding VND500 million or equivalent amount in foreign
currency (for domestic transfer) or $1,000 (for inbound or outbound transfer) and
information, documents and records of the transactions, must be kept for at least five
years from the date of the transaction.
Tipping off
The reporting entity/ individual, management or employees of reporting entity/individual
is not allowed to inform a person involved in a suspicious transaction that it has reported
or will report the transaction to the State Bank of Vietnam.
Whistle-blowing
The AML only sets out regulations on reporting to the following state agencies instead of
whistle-blowing.
• State Bank of Vietnam;
• Investigating agencies, agencies assigned to conduct a number of investigative
activities, or People's Procuracies, national security protection agencies under
the People's Public Security;
• State inspection agencies, agencies assigned to perform the function of
conducting the specialized inspection of reporting entities.
Offences
Enforcements
If the parties related to the transactions are included in the blacklist or there are grounds
to believe that the transaction required to be performed is related to the criminal
activities or requested by competent state authorities, the reporting entity/ individual
must apply measures to delay the transaction within maximum three working days and
must immediately report in writing and notify via phone to the competent State agencies
and the SBV for cooperation. If the reporting entity/individual does not receive any
feedback from the competent state agencies after three working days, it can proceed the
transaction.
In addition, the reporting entity/individual must block the accounts or seal or temporarily
seize assets of the individuals/organizations upon having decision of competent state
agencies under the law and make report on the implementation to the State Bank of
Vietnam.
Penalties
Persons violating the AML are subject to administrative sanctions of up to VND500
million, discipline or criminal penalty depending on the nature and seriousness of such
violations. The criminal sanctions varies from one year to maximum 15 year
imprisonment, together with partly or wholly confiscation of assets, monetary fine of up

6. to three times of the violated amount, abandonment of holding certain positions or titles
from one to five years.
The criminal sanctions against corporate legal entities include monetary fine of VND1
billion up to VND20 billion, together with business operation suspension of one to three
years, banning from particular business field operations of one to three years, or forced
termination and liquidation.
Internal procedures and training
Pursuant to Article 24 of the AML, reporting entities/ individuals must establish internal
procedures on prevention and combating money laundering with the following contents:
• Customer acceptance policy;
• Customer identification procedures and processes;
• Risk management policies and procedures;
• Procedures for reporting of should-be-reported transactions;
• Steps in examining, detecting, handling and reporting suspicious transactions;
methods of contact with customers performing suspicious transactions;
• Storage, security and confidentiality of information;
• Apply provisional measures, principles for handling postponement of
transactions;
• Regimes for reporting or providing information to the State Bank of Vietnam and
other competent state authorities;
• Recruitment and training of personnel specializing in AML activities;
• Internal control, audit of compliance with policies, regulations, regulatory
processes and procedures relating to AML activities; responsibilities of each
natural person or department for implementation of internal rules and regulations
on AML.
Sanctions
International conventions
International cooperation in the field of prevention of and combating money laundering
includes: (i) exchange and provide information on prevention of and combating money
laundering; (ii) determining and blocking assets of the violating persons; (iii) performing
judicial assistance; (iv) research, training, information support, technical assistance,
financial aid and AML experience exchange and (v) other aspects. The process,
procedures and cooperation methods are in accordance with international agreements
to which Vietnam is a party.
CTF – Countering terrorist finance
The Ministry of Public Security is tasked with the preparation of a list of organizations
and individuals related to terrorism and terrorist finance (blacklist). The reporting entity/
individual must promptly report to the competent anti-terrorism authorities, and at the
same time send reports to the State Bank of Vietnam upon detecting organizations and
individuals to conduct transactions included in the blacklist or when there is evidence
that other organizations and individuals commit acts related to the money laundering
crime for terrorism financing.

7. At the same time, the reporting entity/individual must apply measures to delay the
transaction and block the accounts or seal or temporarily seize assets of the individuals/
organizations.
Anti bribery and corruption laws
Corruption is widespread throughout Vietnam. For information, Vietnam ranks 77/180
according to the 2022 Corruption Perception Index, a significant increase compared with
its rank in 2021 (87th). Sectors most affected by corruption are police; public
administration; health sector, judiciary; and land management. The Vietnamese
government acknowledges the negative impact of corruption on both Vietnam's future
prosperity and the party's own legitimacy, thus has adopted one of the most
comprehensive and ambitious anti-corruption laws in Asia. The anti-corruption legal
framework has seen some improvements after the adoption of the Anti-corruption Law
by the National Assembly in 2005 (as amended in 2007, 2012 and 2018) and the
National Strategy on Anti-corruption to 2030.
However, in the last 10 years of implementation, considering the increasing level of
complexity of corruption cases, the current legal framework has been proved to be
inadequate to combat corruption in Vietnam. This prompted the Vietnamese government
to refine the current regime to make the policies fully effective and operational in
practice.
There is no definition of "bribery" under Vietnam laws. However, in essence, it could be
defined as an act of offering, promising, making or receiving money or anything of value
(minimum threshold: VND 2 million (approx. $90) or intangible benefit: no clear guidance
but sex, job positions, and education acceptance offerings may be considered) to induce
or influence an act/omission or decision. The current laws only target people with
positions and power (i.e., state officials). Please note the receipt of minimum VND 1
billion is subject to death penalty.
This country profile was kindly provided by Dr. Oliver Massmann, general director
of Duane Morris Vietnam LLC