Credit institutions headquartered in these financial centers will not be bound by restrictions on to foreign ownership or foreign investment conditions when providing services there or across borders.

Hanoi is advancing its efforts to integrate technology into urban management by expanding the pilot program for cashless parking payments throughout the city.

One of the key priorities for the banking sector is to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as they generate a large number of jobs and contribute significantly to the economy.

The country is on track for classification as Secondary Emerging in the review on September 2020, in case of meeting all criteria of FTSE Russell.

The Vietnamese central bank is expected not to take further monetary policy action for the rest of 2019.

As of end 2018, the inter-bank electronic payment system processed 137.6 million transactions worth VND73,000 trillion (US$3.13 trillion), 13 times the country’s GDP.

The program enables students to address frivolous spending and economic challenges.

Alliex plans to invest over US$700 million in the next five years to install 600,000 devices for payment via cards in Vietnam’s market.

This modest growth was mainly on the back of the 3.2% expansion of the government bond market to US$48.0 billion, due to issuance of treasury bonds and central bank bills.

The State Bank of Vietnam, the country’s central bank, would continue to closely monitoring the macro-economic conditions and managing the monetary policy in a flexible manner, aiming to support economic growth.

The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) may consider another rate cut from now on until the end of the year to have a substantial impact on the financial market and support economic growth.

Before taking the helm at HSBC Vietnam, Tim Evans served as HSBC’s Regional Head of Commercial Banking, International Markets in Asia-Pacific, covering Bangladesh, Mauritius, New Zealand, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam

Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung attributed the low disbursement rate to delay in assigning mid-term public investment plan, insufficient fund allocation, slow adjustment of investment plan, cumbersome procedures, or delay in completing disbursement procedures.

A 0.25% reduction is subject to refinancing interest rate, re-discount interest rate, interest rate applicable to overnight loans, and interest via open market operation (OMO), starting effective since September 16.

Three main sources of Vietnam’s foreign currency include the disbursement of the FDI, trade surplus and M&A activities.

As of August, state budget revenue stood at VND997.6 trillion (US$43 billion), equivalent to 70.7% of the estimate and up 12.4% year-on-year.

The scheduled time of the issuance is the fourth quarter of 2019 and in 2020, depending on the market situation and the needs of SHB, while the bonds are set to be listed on Singapore Stock Exchange.

Experts attributed the success in the fight against the dollarization in the economy to the central bank’s effective policies, including the zero percent dollar deposit interest rate and the foreign exchange stability.

Banks must maintain an appropriate deposit rates that would not cause instability and affect the average interest rate in the market, requested the Vietnamese central bank.

This is the first corporate governance code developed and released specifically for the Vietnamese market, in compliance with current legislation.

In the first six months of 2019, total corporate bond issuance reached VND116 trillion (US$5 billion), up 7.4% year-on-year, including VND36.7 trillion (US$1.58 billion) from commercial banks, and VND22.12 trillion (US$953.53 million) from realty firms, among others.

M&A in banking sector is forecast to be exciting in the near future as many banks are accelerating to restructure and raise capital to meet Basel II standards’ deadline by 2020 set by the central bank, experts said.

Hanoi is an important gateway for businesses to tap opportunities in Vietnam’s fast-growing cities in the north.