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At the Digital Trust in Finance 2026 forum, held on the afternoon of May 12, 2026 under the theme “Building digital trust in finance in the AI era,” speakers at a roundtable agreed that Vietnam’s digital asset market has grown large enough to require formal shaping and proper management. In this context, “digital trust” is no longer only a psychological factor for users, but a core condition for the development of the broader digital finance ecosystem.
The presentations also highlighted an increasing convergence between fintech, AI, and traditional finance. Many firms are investing in technology, data, and risk governance to improve user experience and protect system operations. At the same time, new risks—such as fraud, financial misinformation, deepfakes, and cyberattacks—are not limited to a single firm, but can spread across multiple platforms and systems.
Against this backdrop, the discussion focused on how Vietnam’s digital finance ecosystem is coordinated and supervised, and what areas still need improvement to strengthen the linkage between regulators and enterprises.
Responding to the questions, Mr. To Tran Hoa, Deputy Head of the Standing Office of the Crypto Asset Exchange Market Management (UBCKNN), said that for the digital asset market, regulators do not use the term “cross-border,” but instead view it as a “borderless” market. He noted that transactions on blockchain platforms occur instantly and are not constrained by national borders.
Mr. Hoa identified the biggest challenge as tracing and protecting assets when cyberattacks occur. He said that in traditional finance, tracing funds and identifying offenders can be comparatively clearer, while for digital assets the difficulty is much higher.
“This is not a problem that a single agency or a single enterprise can solve,” he emphasized, “but requires cooperation among many agencies, many enterprises, and even between countries.”
On building the legal framework for the crypto asset market, Mr. Hoa said the central goals are investor protection. The first step is to recognize crypto assets as a type of asset protected by civil law. He added that the next step is to set high standards for service providers, including capital requirements and technology capacity and operational experience.
He also said regulators have opened a mechanism for Vietnamese enterprises to cooperate with foreign experienced firms to jointly develop infrastructure and market management, as a way to leverage international technology platforms and expertise in a market that remains relatively new in Vietnam.
Regarding supervision, Mr. Hoa said Resolution No. 05 assigns the Ministry of Finance to coordinate with the Ministry of Public Security and the State Bank to jointly oversee the crypto asset market. He noted that ministries are also building a joint mechanism to supervise activities in this market.
Because digital assets can be withdrawn and transferred almost instantly if attacked, he said regulatory cooperation must be especially tight. At the same time, regulators are adopting a “cautious but controlled” approach to avoid overly rigid technical barriers that could impede technological innovation.
Internationally, Vietnam has signed agreements with securities regulators worldwide and will continue to strengthen coordination with other international regulators to support monitoring of the crypto asset market, particularly in anti-money laundering and compliance with FATF recommendations.
On the timeline for officially implementing the crypto asset market, Mr. Hoa said progress today does not depend on regulators but mainly on the capability of enterprises. He said the Ministry of Finance has issued a principle-based approval for five enterprises to participate in implementing the market.
After this step, enterprises must meet two key requirements: contributing at least VND 10,000 billion in charter capital and building an IT system that meets level-4 security standards.
Mr. Hoa said the biggest current challenge is meeting the level-4 security standard, which he described as a very high threshold for infrastructure. He added that when the first exchange will be launched depends entirely on the enterprises’ capacity rather than regulators. Enterprises, he said, will need to closely cooperate with A05—the Ministry of Public Security—during dossier completion and in meeting the required security standards.
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