Are Vietnamese citizens legally required to link bank accounts to the digital ID?
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Executive summary
Vietnam has moved to require biometric and digital identity verification for banking transactions: individual customers faced biometric registration deadlines starting January 1, 2025, and corporate legal representatives were required to register biometrics by July 1, 2025, with banks restricting online services for unverified accounts [1] [2]. Authorities and the State Bank of Vietnam report large-scale “data‑cleansing” — over 120 million biometric record validations and reports of some 86+ million dormant or non‑compliant accounts identified for freezing or deactivation in 2025 — but reporting differs on timing and enforcement steps [3] [4] [5].
1. What the law and central bank circulars actually require
Regulations from the State Bank of Vietnam and related circulars tighten identity verification in banking: biometric verification (facial or chip-stored image) and chip-enabled citizen ID cards are required for many digital banking functions, and Clause 5(c), Article 17 of Circular 17/2024/TT‑NHNN makes biometric checks for corporate digital transactions enforceable from July 1, 2025 [2] [1]. Additional circulars extend biometric KYC to corporate accounts and embed transaction thresholds and device-new‑user triggers that require live biometric authentication for some transfers, per reporting and expert summaries [5] [1].
2. Practical effect on ordinary customers and businesses
Banks have implemented deadlines: individuals were asked to complete biometric registration by January 1, 2025 for certain services, and corporate legal representatives faced a July 1, 2025 deadline to keep electronic payment and withdrawal access [1] [2]. From 2026 onward, several outlets say banks will disable online transaction features for accounts that have not synchronized identification and biometric data to national population database standards, requiring in‑branch reactivation [6] [7].
3. Scale and “data‑cleansing”: disputed numbers and enforcement steps
Multiple sources cite sweeping account cleanups. The SBV reported validating more than 120.9 million individual records and over 1.2 million organizational accounts [3] [7]. Separate reporting states that more than 86 million accounts were deactivated or at risk during 2025 as part of the cleanup push; some outlets describe freezes or closures beginning September 2025, while others describe restrictions earlier in the year [4] [5] [8] [9]. The precise count, timing and whether accounts are “deactivated,” “frozen” or merely restricted varies between sources [4] [5].
4. Which documents and digital IDs are acceptable — changing rules
Authorities moved to standardize accepted identity documents: banks will require chip‑based ID cards, standard ID cards, or level‑2 electronic IDs (VNeID) for verification and will stop accepting passports for banking procedures from January 1, 2026 according to one report [3]. Where NFC reading of chip cards is unreliable, banks offer branch‑based biometric capture as an alternative [1] [6].
5. Security and policy rationale vs. civil‑liberties concerns
Officials frame the changes as anti‑fraud, AML/CFT and payment‑system modernization measures tied to Project 06 and the national population database [4] [3]. Critics — including privacy advocates and internet commentators — characterize the sweep as coercive data collection and warn about surveillance and financial exclusion; those views appear in reporting and opinion pieces but are not uniformly quantified in official documents [4] [5].
6. What remains unclear or unreported in available sources
Available sources do not mention precise legal remedies for wrongly frozen accounts, guarantees on biometric data protection and retention, or an independent audit of the SBV’s claimed account counts and the technical accuracy of biometric matches; they also do not provide a unified timeline reconciling all reported dates of account freezes vs. restrictions (not found in current reporting). Different outlets use terms like “freeze,” “deactivate,” and “restrict,” which implies inconsistent implementation across banks [4] [5] [8].
7. Practical advice for Vietnamese account holders and foreign residents
Reporting advises citizens to update chip‑based IDs or register via VNeID, complete biometric synchronization before banks’ cutoffs, and visit branches if NFC or remote options fail to avoid service disruption during peak periods such as the Lunar New Year [6] [3]. For corporate entities, legal representatives should complete e‑ID and biometric steps before July 1, 2025 to maintain electronic payment capabilities [2] [10].
Sources cited in this analysis: reporting and circular summaries compiled from [1], [4], [5], [8], [10], [6], [7], [2], [9], [3], [11], [12].