Financial Supervisory Service of South Korea committees to assist Vietnam

The scene of working session

Speaking at the meeting, Minister Dinh Tien Dung said after more than 25 years of establishing diplomatic relations, Vietnam-South Korea relations have made great progress. South Korea is currently Vietnam's third largest trading partner (bilateral turnover in 2018 reached $66.2 billion) and was targeting to reach $100 billion by 2020.

Also according to the minister, up to now, South Korea has become the largest foreign investor in Vietnam with a total capital of more than $63.7 billion (accounting for 18.4 percent of total investment capital). Along with the new "southward" policy of South Korea, this time was the beginning stage for the trend of investing in Vietnam with technology investment strategy. Furthermore, the exchange in the fields of education, cultural cooperation, sports and tourism has helped promote the Vietnam-South Korea relationship to develop substantially and effectively.

The minister also shared with Yoon Suk Heun the results Vietnam has achieved in the field of securities and insurance. Accordingly, in both fields, South Korea was one of the strategic partners of Vietnam.

Notably, Minister Dung also said the application of new technology in financial services (fintech) was an indispensable development trend in the digital era when the digital economy becomes more important. This would play a key role in enhancing the market approach of international and domestic investors.

“Vietnam is a country with many favourable and potential conditions for the development of the financial technology field. Currently, the number of financial technology (fintech) companies has doubled from around 40 companies by the end of 2016 to around 100 companies at the present time and concentrated primarily in the banking sector. Fintech companies in Vietnam were currently operating mainly in payment field with 27 companies licensed by the State Bank, following was the field of lending and others companies developing solutions to support the bank's operations without directly providing services to end-users,” the Minister said.

Following the direction of the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Finance has assigned units to research and evaluate the ability to support innovative startups through tax policies; participating in contributing state capital to private creative start-up fund; research to pilot implementation of crowdfunding and equity trading platforms of innovative startups. Accordingly, in the draft Securities Law, it was expected to regulate in the diretion that the Government would instruct creative startups to mobilise capital through the stock market, facilitating these enterprises to operate.

Yoon Suk Heun said by August 2019, the number of South Korean businesses in financial investment in Vietnam had reached 40 enterprises, diversifying business lines from banks, securities to non-banks. For those businesses, the granting license and facilitating from Vietnam is very convenient. He expressed his appreciation for this.

“Currently, Vietnam was changing to attract long-term capital. I believed this was the right decision of that completingthe legal framework to revise the relevant laws. South Korea is concerned and would support Vietnam in this matter,” he said.

Minister Dung also expected that in the future, the South Korean Financial Supervisory Services would continue to accompany with Vietnam in changing financial policies and supporting the Ministry of Finance in completing the legal framework as well as solving financial crises.