HÀ NỘI — The State Bank of Việt Nam (SBV) has entrusted relevant agencies to closely scrutinise the Panama Papers and act on the information in accordance with the country’s legal regulations.

This was announced by Nguyễn Văn Ngọc, director of SBV’s National Anti-Money Laundering Department.

Ngọc’s order comes after several Vietnamese names were included in a huge database of secret offshore companies, part of the Panama Papers and Offshore Leaks investigations, posted online this week.

The department would also co-operate with other relevant ministries and agencies to deal with the cases in accordance with their respective functions and the country’s legal regulations, Ngọc said.

Although some Vietnamese names were published in the Panama Papers, no detailed information on the operations or transactions undertaken in the cases had been published as yet, he said.

According to Ngọc, the country currently has adequate foreign currency regulations that cover a range of issues, from payment transactions to money transfers in and out of Việt Nam for current accounts, capital transactions and open foreign accounts.

The Panama Papers, disclosed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) after they were obtained from Panama law firm and corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca, includes 11.5 million documents, some of which date back to the 1970s, that detail the financial and the attorney-client information of more than 214,488 offshore entities.

German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung was the first to gain access to the Panama Papers database after a tip-off from a source named “John Doe”. The newspaper then granted the ICIJ access to this database.

The Panama Papers, first reported by the media on April 3, illustrates how wealthy individuals, including public officials, are able to keep their personal financial information secret. — VNS