The State Bank of Vietnam has cleaned up 154 million bank accounts and flagged nearly 300,000 customers for suspected fraud. — VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) announced that it has cleaned up 154 million bank accounts and flagged nearly 300,000 customers for suspected fraud, blocking transactions worth a combined VNĐ1.5 trillion (US$56.9 million).

According to Director of the SBV’s Information Technology Department Lê Hoàng Chính Quang, as of September 2025, the central bank proposed cutting and simplifying 124 out of 298 administrative procedures, representing 41.6 per cent of the total. This initiative has reduced processing time by hundreds of days and saved more than VNĐ7.6 billion in costs.

The bank’s Anti-Money Laundering Department, in cooperation with the Ministry of Public Security, scrubbed 154 million accounts and 36 million customer files from the national database on money laundering and terrorist financing. The National Credit Information Centre (CIC) similarly cross-checked 57 million records, cleansing nearly 44.5 million customer files from its credit information database.

Quang said that 57 banks and 39 intermediary institutions integrated biometric authentication into mobile banking platforms. More than 128.9 million personal accounts and 1.3 million corporate accounts were verified biometrically, or 100 per cent of active digital banking users.

Over the past time, the central bank had identified some 600,000 accounts showing suspicious activity. Through collaboration with banks, authorities warned nearly 300,000 customers and blocked transactions totalling around VNĐ1.5 trillion.

Deputy Director of the Anti-Money Laundering Department Nguyễn Thị Minh Thơ said that the department is implementing the Government’s resolution on piloting crypto trading market, with four major missions of establishing anti-money laundering obligations for encrypted asset service providers; collecting, processing and transferring information about suspicious transactions; ensuring close coordination among the SBV, the Ministry of Finance, the State Securities Commission and the Ministry of Public Security; and fostering international cooperation to enhance anti-money laundering effectiveness.

The central bank is developing specific guidelines for financial institutions to provide related services while meeting legal requirements for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and financing of weapons of mass destruction proliferation, tailored to the characteristics of the encrypted asset market. — VNS