HANOI– Vietnam’s central bank has scrubbed 154 million bank accounts and flagged close to 300,000 customers for suspected fraud, stopping transactions worth 1.5 trillion Vietnamese dong ($56.9 million). The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) announced the results last week, closing a year of data checks aimed at shoring up the country’s fast-growing digital finance sector.
Working with the Ministry of Public Security and commercial banks, the SBV verified 128.9 million personal accounts and 1.3 million corporate accounts, covering all active digital users. “This is not housekeeping, it is a reset of confidence in the financial system,” said Pham Anh Tuan, director of the SBV’s Payment Department, in comments to state media.
Investigators flagged 600,000 accounts with suspicious behaviour, including abrupt spikes in activity or unclear ownership, then issued warnings and applied blocks.
The push targets a surge in account openings. By 2023, Vietnam had more than 200 million accounts, over double the population of 101 million. Many were idle, duplicated or used for crimes such as money laundering and identity theft.
Fraud in Vietnam
The SBV’s Anti-Money Laundering Department checked 36 million profiles against a national database on terrorist financing, using facial recognition and AI tools to spot anomalies. Earlier this year, more than 86 million unverified accounts were shut down, followed by this latest wave of actions.
Fraud has risen with the spread of online payments. Non-cash transactions reached 295.2 quadrillion dong ($11.57 trillion) in 2024, about 26 times Vietnam’s GDP. That growth supports e-commerce, remittances and daily spending, yet weak checks gave criminals room to act.
In May, police broke up a ring that used deepfake face scans to wash over 1 trillion dong through mule accounts. Transfers above 10 million dong ($379) now require biometric approval, and daily limits over 20 million dong ($758) trigger checks.
“Fraud is not a fee of doing business, it threatens financial access,” said SBV governor Nguyen Thi Hong at a briefing in Hanoi.
The timing suits wider policy goals. Vietnam is speeding up its cashless push under the national digital transformation plan to 2025, with an eye on a more connected fintech market by 2030.
Investment has flowed into banking tech, from DBS of Singapore to KB Financial of South Korea, drawn by a young base where 70 percent of adults use smartphones. Yet the SBV’s firm hand shows a clear trade-off, innovation set against strict security in a market still wary after the 2012 VietinBank cyber theft of $1 million.
The economic effects stretch beyond compliance. The frozen funds are small beside a $430 billion economy, but the response could steady investor nerves. Fitch recently lifted Vietnam’s outlook to stable and forecast growth of 6.5 percent this year despite global pressure.
Mandatory Data Sharing
Banks may also benefit, since cleaner books can lower non-performing loan risks, now around 4.5 percent, and release capital for lending to growth areas such as semiconductors and renewables.
Not everyone welcomes the purge. Digital rights groups call it a biometric barrier that shuts out those on the edge. Rural and older users in remote areas, around 30 percent of the population, often lack the tools or skills for face scans, which has led to unwanted freezes.
“This is not cleaning, it is coercion,” said Le Thi Minh, a Hanoi-based NGO director. Reports from the Mekong Delta tell of farmers rushing to branches, facing long queues and app errors. Foreign residents also report delays, with expat forums full of complaints about stuck remittances.
Privacy concerns linger. Mandatory data sharing with security agencies revives memories of the 2023 Credit Information Centre breach, when millions of records were leaked and VNCERT warned of misuse.
A Brussels-based tech policy analyst, who asked not to be named, claimed Vietnam is building surveillance under the cover of fraud control. The SBV says data is encrypted and follows the 2023 Personal Data Protection Law, but doubts persist in an era of deepfake fears.
Other countries are watching. Central banks from India to Nigeria face similar pressures from mass onboarding and fraud. Hanoi’s mix of speed, strict rules and tech could inspire, or unsettle. The EU’s Digital Identity Wallet is still tied up in regulation, which looks slow by comparison. In the end, success depends on execution, and whether guardrails widen access or harden the walls.
For now, the figures are striking. With 113 million verified personal accounts active, Vietnam moves closer to a cash-light future. Yet across its 63 provinces, many still fear overreach and lost access. As Pham Anh Tuan said, “We clean today to build tomorrow.” Whether tomorrow’s banks feel like safe houses or watchtowers is the trillion-dollar question.
