Vietnam State Bank Guides Intermediary Payment Services under Circular 23

In recent years, digital wallet have been a trend in fintech because of the competitive development from the foreign investors to banks in Vietnam or of large technology companies and corporations which are also gradually entering the financial technology market to challenge the conventional banking in Vietnam.

In a nutshell, digital wallet, also known as online wallet, is an account of payment for the most popular online transactions such as: payment for electricity, water, tuition, phone recharge, buying movie tickets, etc. The function of the digital wallet is operated by linking a bank account, adding money to the wallet and paying for any associated services in a simple and convenient way.

Besides the benefits, digital wallet could also bring possible negative impacts and obstacles in reality. The State realizes the matter and has recently issued policies and regulations on the management of intermediary payment services in Vietnam in order to achieve economic efficiency. On 22th Nov in 2019, the State bank of Viet Nam promulgates the Circular No. 23/2019/TT-NHNN amending, supplementing some articles of Circular No. 39/2014/TT-NHNN on 11th Dec in 2014 guiding the intermediary payment services.

One of the new points of the Circular is the regulation on amending and supplementing of the provision of digital wallet. Firstly, when opening a digital wallet, customer must provide, update fully and accurately the information in the digital wallet opening file to providers of digital wallet services and take responsibility for the truthfulness of the provided information; providers of digital wallet services are responsible for checking, comparing and ensuring that the customer’s application for opening Digital wallet is complete, valid and must request customer to complete the linking of Digital wallet to their payment accounts or debit cards which was opened at associated bank before they use Digital wallet. Customer are allowed to associate Digital wallet with one or many of their payment accounts or debit cards (Digital wallet owner) which was opened at associated banks. It can be seen that this new regulation is reasonable, because Digital wallet are a non-cash payment method. Therefore, banks need to have specific information of users to avoid situation of one person opening multiple Wallet accounts for illegal purposes.

Secondly, money to Digital wallet must deposited from: (i) Customer’s payment account or debit card (Digital wallet owner) at the bank; (ii) Receiving money from other Digital wallet opened by the same Providers of Digital wallet services. Customers can use Digital wallet in order to: (i) Payment for legal goods and services; (ii) Transfer money to other Digital wallet opened by the same Providers of Digital wallet services; (iii) Withdraw money from Digital wallet back to customer’s payment account or debit card (Digital wallet owner) at the bank. One of the most remarkable thing is the new regulation on the total limit of transactions via personal Digital wallet of 01 customer at 01 Providers of Digital wallet services (including transactions of payment for legal goods and services and money transfer from Digital wallet to other Digital wallet opened by the same Providers of Digital wallet services) with maximum of VND 100 (one hundred) million in a month, except for personal Digital wallet of persons having contracts / agreements acting as payment acceptance units with Providers of Digital wallet. For organizations, the State Bank does not set the limit for Digital wallet transactions. The regulation of transaction limits for Digital wallet aims to minimize the risk of taking advantage of money laundering, gambling, and performing illegal activities that have been already difficult to manage.

Finally, The Circular stipulates the prohibition of using Digital wallet to conduct transactions for money laundering, terrorist financing, fraud, cheating and other violations of law; Prohibition of rent, lease, borrow, lend Digital wallet or buy and sell Digital wallet information; Supplementation conditions on tools of supervision on activities of providing Digital wallet services to the State Bank by Providers of Digital wallet services.

Lawyers in banking and financial service advisory desk of ANT Lawyers always follow the development of law, especially in fintech where changes are fast to cope with the development of technology and market demand, to provide update to its clients.

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Danang’s Target in 2020 is “The Year of Promoting Investment Attraction”

On December 04th, 2019 Danang city held the conference on the result of the socio-economic development in 2019 and the target of the city in 2020. The conference affirmed the situation of implementing the city’s political duties, ensuring some criteria for socio-economic development of the city. In 2019, the city has achieved some outstanding results such as: budget revenue exceeded the assigned estimate (estimated at VND 28.170 billion, reached 102,9% of the estimate, up 3,5%; attracted more than 3.696 billion dong of domestic investment and more than 658 million USD of foreign investment capital (newly granted investment certificates of 118 FDI projects with a total registered capital of 437,13 million USD, 8 times higher than the same period); Total tourist arrivals were estimated at 8.69 times, up 13.4%, revenue from tourism activities was estimated at 30.973 billion VND, up 16,7%. In the year, social order and safety were maintained, is considered by many investors and tourists to be a destination for investment and tourism.

In 2020 is particularly important, the last year to implement the 5-year plan from 2016 to 2020 and the year of many political and cultural events. At this 19th Conference, the Conference agreed on the theme of 2020 as “The year of promoting investment attraction” with specific tasks to focus on implementing: promulgate new preferential policies of the city to attract investors; implement plans on improving the quality and efficiency of foreign investment cooperation; continue to improve infrastructure, expand high-tech zones, create land fund to call for investment; continue to remove obstacles in the planning, land management, human resources for businesses and investors. In 2020, the city will actively coordinate with ministries and branches to submit to the National Assembly for approval of the Resolution on Da Nang construction and development to 2030, with a vision to 2045; on that basis, submit to the Government for promulgation a decree on specific mechanisms and policies on city development.

In addition, with the goal of attracting foreign investors, the city hopes to receive more investors from many countries around the world to invest in high-tech and technology industries, biology, environmental protection projects, tourism development, etc. through setting up company, factory in Da nang City. This is a great opportunity for international investors to seize the opportunity to invest in Danang today, in order to enjoy the incentives, as well as the highest investment efficiency in the future.

ANT Lawyers law firm is pround to support clients and promote Da nang as a friendly destination for investment in Vietnam.

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Subject Matters of Intellectual Property Rights

Intellectual property subject matter is divided into three groups included: subject matter of copyright, subject matter of industrial property rights, subject matter of rights to plant varieties. In details:

-The subject matter of copyright shall comprise literary, artistic and scientific works; the subject matter of copyright related rights shall comprise performances, audio and visual fixation, broadcasts and satellite signals carrying coded programmes.

-The subject matter of industrial property rights shall comprise inventions, industrial designs, designs of semi-conducting closed circuits, trade secrets, marks, trade names and geographical indications.

-The subject matter of rights to plant varieties shall comprise plant varieties and harvested materials.

Pursuant to Intellectual Property right 2005 (amended in 2009), Intellectual property rights means rights of an organization or individual to intellectual assets comprising copyright and copyright related rights, industrial property rights and rights to plant varieties. For example, software computer program can be protected under Copyright, or name of a product can be protected under Industrial property right that is Trademark or the outward appearance of a car can be protected as Industrial design.

However, intellectual property rights are generated and established based on certain grounds:

Firstly, copyright shall arise at the moment a work is created and fixed in a certain material form, irrespective of its content, quality, form, mode and language and irrespective of whether or not such work has been published or registered. For instance, a musician is about to write a song, however, the idea of the song still bears in mind of the musician and have not written down yet. At that time, copyright of the musician still does not generate.

Secondly, related rights shall arise at the moment a performance, audio and visual fixation, broadcast or satellite signal carrying coded programmes is fixed or displayed without causing loss or damage to copyright. Related right is the right related to copyright. Proceeding to above example, when the musician has finished writing his song and is sung by the singer on stage, the right of the singer to sing the song of the musician is related right.

Thirdly, different grounds for the generation and establishment of industrial property right. As said above, industrial property rights include 7 subject matters: inventions, industrial designs, designs of semi-conducting closed circuits, trade secrets, marks, trade names and geographical indications. These subjects have different grounds for generating and establishing right:

-Industrial property rights to an invention, industrial design, layout design, mark or geographical indication shall be established on the basis of a decision of the competent State body to grant a protection title in accordance with the registration procedures;

-Industrial property rights to a trade name shall be established on the basis of lawful use thereof;

-Industrial property rights to a trade secret shall be established on the basis of lawful acquirement of the trade secret and maintaining confidentiality thereof.

Fourthly, rights to a plant variety shall be established on the basis of a decision of the competent State body to grant a plant variety protection title in accordance with the registration procedures

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Work permit for foreign investors?

Vietnam is a country that has been having many policies to attract foreign investors to work in Vietnam. In particular, foreign investors are individuals with foreign nationality, organizations established under foreign laws and carry out business investment activities in Vietnam. When conducting business investment activities in Vietnam, many people wonder if a work permit is required? In this article, we will help you answer the above questions.

Foreign investors carry out business activities in Vietnam in one of the forms such as contributing, purchasing shares or capital contributions of economic organizations. If the investor is a foreign individual who is a capital-contributing member or owner of a limited liability company, he / she will be exempted from work permit under the provisions of Clause 1, Article 7 of Decree 11/2016/ND-CP.

However, this provision does not mean that all of investors are automatically exempted from work permits. Foreign investors who are not required to have a work permit must be certified by the Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs before coming to work in Vietnam. Specifically, according to Article 8 of Decree 11/2016 / ND-CP, the employer requests the Department of Labor - Invalids and Social Affairs where the foreigner is expected to work to confirm the foreign worker is not required to issue a work permit at least 07 working days in advance from the date the foreign worker starts working.

Dossier of request for certification not subject to issuance of a work permit, including: Written request for certification of foreign workers not subject to work permit and documents proving that the foreign worker is not subject to a work permit. Within 03 working days from the date of receipt of a complete application for certification not subject to a work permit, the Department of Labor - Invalids and Social Affairs shall send a written confirmation to the employer. In case of non-certification, there must be a written reply clearly stating the reason.

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Please click here to learn more about ANT Lawyers or contact our Law Firms In Vietnam for advice via email ant@antlawyers.vn or call our office at +84 28 730 86 529

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