Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance has revised a draft circular on electronic securities trading to drop a requirement that investors pass a biometric check when placing buy and sell orders online, while keeping face verification for transactions it considers high risk.
The draft, prepared by the State Securities Commission, originally required investors to match their biometric data at least for the first transaction of every login session. After the first round of consultation, the commission removed that requirement for orders, and investors can instead use standard authentication methods such as one-time passwords, according to the drafting agency’s latest summary of comments.
Rules on transaction authentication drew about 100 comments, the most of any topic among more than 400 in the first round. Most securities companies said their systems could be overloaded. Rong Viet Securities cited more than 12 million active trading accounts and warned that investors could face errors or be unable to log in if many accounts authenticated at the start of a session or during sharp market swings.
The revision also drops a rule that authentication and trading take place on the same device, so an investor ordering on a computer can receive a one-time password or scan their face through a phone app; many firms said most computers have no camera. A requirement to use biometrics for withdrawals and transfers above 10 million dong was removed. After a second round of consultation, which drew 25 written submissions, biometric checks at login now apply only to a first login or a login from an unrecognized device.
Biometric verification remains mandatory when an investor changes or adds the bank account that receives their money. Some companies proposed allowing a one-time password for that step, but the drafting agency rejected the idea, calling it a high-risk transaction that could be used to divert customers’ money to illegitimate accounts. Securities firms must also offer biometric authentication to customers who request it.
Securities companies may hire third-party providers to support authentication but remain responsible to investors. The 12-month transition period was kept despite requests for 18 to 24 months. Linking trading accounts to VNeID, the national electronic identification account, remains unresolved: firms said Decree 320/2026/ND-CP gives no guidance on how to do it, and foreign investors and institutional clients do not yet have identification accounts. The commission said it has passed these problems to the competent authorities.
Sources: Tap chi Kinh te Tai chinh
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
