The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) used the Fintech Connecting 2025 event in Ho Chi Minh City, co-hosted with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), to outline its push for secure data connectivity and sharing across the banking sector and to take stock of work to build an open banking ecosystem through Open APIs. SBV also announced the “Fintech Challenge Vietnam 2026”, aimed at encouraging innovative fintech solutions that apply data and artificial intelligence. SBV linked its approach to a wider set of strategies and legal measures, including the banking sector’s digital transformation and data strategies to 2030, the 2024 Law on Credit Institutions, Decree 52/2024 on cashless payments and Decree 94/2025 on a controlled sandbox mechanism for banking. It highlighted Circular 64/2024 on Open API implementation as the framework for standardised and safe API deployment, supporting bank–third party collaboration while protecting data security and customer rights. SBV’s Information Technology Department reported three main outcomes so far: enabling banking services to be embedded into digital platforms (supporting open banking and embedded finance), improving opportunities for data sharing and risk management, and supporting financial inclusion by reaching users via familiar platforms such as e-wallets, finance and e-commerce apps, payment apps and online public services. Banks presenting at the event reported building compliance roadmaps around key API groups including e-wallet top-up and withdrawal, payment initiation, customer information queries and eKYC. SBV positioned Fintech Challenge Vietnam 2026 as a national platform for organisations and individuals to develop data- and AI-enabled solutions that support the digital finance ecosystem; speakers also highlighted the need for tight controls, compliance with personal data protection requirements, and stronger risk management capacity as data sharing expands.

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