Investors making transactions at an office of Bảo Việt Securities Company. — VNA/VNS Photo

 HÀ NỘI — The Deputy Prime Minister has requested the Ministry of Finance (MoF) to direct the review, authentication, and cleaning of information on securities traders, including relatives participating in transactions.

The Government Office on September 23 conveyed the direction of Deputy Prime Minister Trần Lưu Quang to the State Securities Commission, the Vietnam Stock Exchange (VNX), and the Vietnam Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation (VDSC) to connect the national database on population, electronic identification and authentication system. 

The move aims to clean up the data of individuals involved in securities trading. This task is expected to be completed in November.

Cleaning up user data involves cross-referencing their information with the national database on population to ensure consistency and eliminating incorrect, duplicate or fictitious data.

The direction was issued as a result of numerous individuals being prosecuted for manipulating the stock market to gain profits. 

In March 2022, former chairman of FLC, Trịnh Văn Quyết, was indicted by the Criminal Investigation Agency of the Ministry of Public Security (C01) for the crime of market manipulation, as stipulated in Article 211 of the Criminal Code. 

In the first months of this year, the market continued to have many other cases of stock price manipulation, resulting in administrative sanctions and/or additional penalties (if applicable). 

For example, in the case of 1369 Construction JSC (C69)’s stocks, Đoàn Bá Hồng was fined VNĐ550 million (US$22,511), while in the case of APG Securities JSC (APG)’s shares, Lê Thị Hải Bình was fined VNĐ1.5 billion, prohibited from securities trading for two years, and banned from holding positions in securities companies and funds for two years.

Previously, the MoF had set a direction for the number of investors in the stock market to reach 8 per cent of the population by 2025 and 10 per cent by 2030, focusing on developing institutional and professional investors and attracting the participation of foreign investors.

Data of VSDC showed that the number of domestic retail investor accounts recorded a rapid increase in the last four months, reaching over 100,000 accounts per month. 

As of the end of August, the number reached 7.59 million units, which is approximately 7.6 per cent of the population. 

The market’s participants are increasingly diverse in terms of profession and age. — VNS