The Ministry of Finance building on Phan Chu Trinh Street, Hà Nội. — Photo cafef.vn

HÀ NỘI — The Ministry of Finance will maintain low service charges for investors and companies when trading securities products until June 30, 2021.

The ministry aims to keep boosting the local equity market amid the negative development of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The decision was made under Circular 70/2020/TT-BTC earlier this month to amend Circular 14/2020/TT-BTC.

Circular 14/2020/TT-BTC was released on March 18 to amend Circular 127/2018/TT-BTC dated December 27, 2018 to regulate the service charges on the Vietnamese securities market.

Circular 14 was developed to support the local equity market having been hit by the coronavirus spread in Việt Nam and other countries. It will expire on August 31.

Accordingly, investors and firms will still enjoy cuts of 10-50 per cent in trading service charges for nine services.

A 10-per cent cut of trading service charges will still be applied for the common stock market, the derivatives market, and depository service.

Investors will also enjoy a 15-20 per cent cut of charges for position management and margin collateral management when trading on the derivatives market.

In addition, charges will be reduced by 30-50 per cent for companies and investors in the management of listed covered warrants, position execution, securities transfer, and competitive bidding.

Companies will also enjoy free-of-charge services of listing registration, securities registration, initial online connection, margin lending through the Vietnam Securities Depository, registration for derivatives market membership, and registration for trading settlement membership.

Based on the new charge cuts, securities firms, asset management companies and investment funds will work to lower their charges to support the local market, which has been hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

All changes will be applied from August 31 and will be valid until June 30, 2021.

After the circular expires on June 30, 2021, service charges will be subject to Circular 127/2018/TT-BTC.

The VN-Index lost 35.2 per cent to hit a three-year low of 660 points in late March after the 17th coronavirus infection case was reported on March 6, ending Việt Nam’s 22 days without community transmission.

The benchmark quickly picked up to hit 900 points on June 10. Since then, the VN-Index has declined by total 12.8 per cent as the number of infection cases is increasing in Việt Nam and other countries, threatening the global economic recovery. — VNS