The Vietnam State Securities Commission has published for public comment a draft circular amending the securities trading, securities company operations and market disclosure rules, with a focus on improving foreign investors’ access to the Vietnamese securities market. The package would introduce a new order-routing model via overseas brokers without requiring foreign investors to open trading accounts at domestic securities companies and would recalibrate parts of the NPF mechanism and related disclosure obligations. Under the draft, amendments to rules on securities company operations would allow foreign investors to trade using only a securities depository account number opened at a custody bank, while transmitting orders via foreign securities companies to domestic securities companies. The draft would also remove the current restrictions on which shares can be traded under NPF and would require a securities company providing NPF services to have an agreement with another securities company so that, where an institutional foreign investor does not settle (or confirms it will not settle), the shares are moved to the other firm’s proprietary account to be sold and the proceeds used to reimburse the NPF service provider. Disclosure rules would be amended so that cases where an institutional foreign investor fails to settle an NPF trade would no longer be subject to the current public disclosure requirement, while securities trading rules would be updated to set out the trading method for foreign investors routing orders through foreign securities companies and to require institutional foreign investors to have sufficient funds within a specified timeframe in non-settlement cases. The draft has been posted on the State Securities Commission’s portal for broad consultation under an expedited rulemaking procedure.

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