On the morning of August 5, Member of the Party Central Committee, Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam Pham Duc An, authorized by the Prime Minister, presented a report on the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the State Bank Law, the Law on Anti-Money Laundering (PCRT) and the Law on Credit Institutions (referred to as the Draft Law).
According to Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam Pham Duc An, the Draft Law is built to institutionalize the viewpoints, policies, guidelines of the Party, laws of the State; comprehensively amend and unify the responsibilities for implementing state management of relevant ministries and sectors;
Amending and supplementing regulations to ensure timeliness, strictness, and to prevent negativity, loss, waste and violations of the law; focusing on solving difficulties and obstacles that have been recorded in practice...
Regarding the Law on the State Bank of Vietnam, the Draft Law supplements the tasks and powers of the State Bank in establishing, monitoring, and analyzing Vietnam's international investment status; assigning the Government to regulate the provision of information to serve the balance of payments and international investment status.
At the same time, amend regulations on opening and using accounts of the State Treasury; legalize the principle of using foreign currency on the territory of Vietnam; improve the special financial mechanism of the State Bank and transfer the authority to regulate the financial revenue and expenditure regime from the Prime Minister to the Government.
The draft also abolishes the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance in inspecting the nghiệp vụ of printing, casting, destroying money and managing state foreign exchange reserves.
Regarding the Law on Anti-Money Laundering, the draft amends many regulations to meet the recommendations of FATF, APG and OECD, such as perfecting the concept of beneficial owners; supplementing the service of encrypted assets as a reporting object; stipulating the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance in inspection, examination, and supervision of this field.
At the same time, the draft completes regulations on recognizing and verifying customer information, transparency of information of legal agreements, and supplements the requirement for reporting entities to fully implement the process of identifying and assessing money laundering risks for new products and services and technology applications.
Notably, the Draft Law has supplemented regulations to protect reporters, information providers and denunciators of money laundering acts.
Accordingly, the Draft Law adds clause 3 after clause 2 of Article 39 of the Law on PCRT "reporters, denouncers, and information providers serving PCRT work are subject to protection measures such as protecting denouncers according to the provisions of the law on denunciation".
Presenting the appraisal report on the above Law Project, Member of the Party Central Committee, Chairman of the Economic and Finance Committee (Committee) of the National Assembly Phan Van Mai said that the Committee agreed with the necessity of building the Law.
Regarding the draft Law on the State Bank of Vietnam (amended), the Committee proposed to soon issue detailed regulations on the mechanism for providing, sharing and exploiting international investment status data of Vietnam; and at the same time review regulations on opening accounts of the State Treasury, the use of foreign currencies in Vietnam and the financial mechanism of the State Bank.
The Committee also proposed to clearly stipulate the organizational structure, functions, tasks, and powers of the State Bank Inspectorate; review regulations on internal audits; clarify the independent control mechanism to replace when abolishing the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance in inspecting the printing, casting, and destruction of money and managing state foreign exchange reserves.
In addition, it is necessary to clarify the conditions, criteria, scope, duration of application, procedures, reporting regime, authority and risk control mechanism when allowing the application of other safety ratios compared to regulations.
Regarding the draft PCRT Law (amended), the Committee proposed to review the concept and criteria for determining beneficial owners; assess the feasibility and cost of compliance in collecting, updating, and verifying information.
At the same time, it is necessary to assess the rationality of the information to be collected, the ability to access data sources for verification; review regulations on suspicious transaction reports, encrypted asset services and guide the collection, verification, update, and storage of information and records.
The Committee also proposed to clearly define the authority to inspect, examine, and supervise PCRT between relevant agencies.
