On the 5th of June 2018, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) published the latest draft of a new Decree on Electronic Transactions in Financial Activities with the objective to replace Decree 27/2007/ND-CP which came into effect on 14 March 2007 (Decree 27). This is not the first version of the draft of new Decree; in 2017, an earlier version was published for discussion and consultation.

After ten years in force, Decree 27 no longer meets the needs of the modern economy and Vietnam’s laws. In 2016, Decree 27 was amended by Decree 156/2016/ND-CP which took effect on the 10^th January 2017. However, this amendment still does not completely resolve the problems and neither of the Decrees take into proper consideration how financial activities are currently conducted in Vietnam. For example, many regulations in Decree 27 cannot be applied in reality because: (i) they are common regulation which do not make sense in actual situations, and (ii) some regulations were drafted based on the use of paper documents instead of electronic documents which causes many difficulties in today’s financial activities.

The new Decree is expected to correct the out-of-date provisions in Decree 27, be applicable in practical day to day situations and aim to an operate in e-transactions where e-financial documents replaces paper ones. This can result in many conveniences on administrative procedure and support enterprises especially small and medium enterprises, and improve competitiveness of the Vietnamese economy.

The draft of new Decree has made detailed the governing scope. According to the draft, the Decree is to be applied to e-transactions in financial activities in the following areas:

(i) Finance – banking (including State budget, taxes, charges, fees and other income of the State budget, State reserves, public assets, State financial funds, financial investments, corporate finance, cooperative finance and collective economy);

(ii) customs;

(iii) accounting;

(iv) independent auditing;

(v) internal auditing;

(vi) price;

(vii) stock; financial services; accounting services;

(vii) auditing services; and

(viii) Insurance business and activities related to insurance business.

There are four groups of legal entity/individuals to which the draft Decree is applicable including:

(i) Agencies, organizations and individuals acting as administrators of information systems for e-transactions in financial activities,

(ii) Agencies, organizations and individuals participating in carrying out e-transactions in financial activities,

(iii) Agencies and organizations who conduct the inspection or checking of the financial activities of enterprises, and

(iv) Agencies and organisations which need to clarify, verify information relating electronic transactions in financial activities of others.

Some important changes in the new Decree including provisions

1. To amend the legal validity of electronic financial documents and the manner of cancellation electronic documents (Articles 5 and 9);
2. To make clear the condition and procedure to transform the paper financial documents to electronic version and vice versa (Article 7 and 8);
3. To allow the inspection and checking of authorities with electronic documents and data;
4. To supplement the provision on safety guarantee in electronic transactions (Article 14);
5. to regulate regarding the intermediary services or third-party services in electronic transactions (Article 15).

This draft of the new Decree is publicized for public, especially enterprises, to contribute their opinions, advice or arguments. The MOF will be responsible for summarizing opinions received, and combine them to produce a further version of the draft of new decree. No information is available regarding the date on which this draft of new decree will be approved.