Did Vietnam require citizens to link bank accounts to a new digital ID system?
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Executive summary
Vietnam required banks to collect biometric data and to link or verify accounts against its new digital ID infrastructure as part of Project 06 and a series of State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) circulars; authorities reported validating over 120.9 million individual records and said unverified accounts would face transaction restrictions from early 2025 [1] [2] [3]. Reporting and industry commentary show enforcement tightened through 2025 with deadlines for individual and corporate biometric verification and large-scale account deactivations or suspensions cited in multiple sources [4] [5] [6].
1. Policy push: Project 06 and the SBV’s biometric mandate
Vietnam’s digital‑ID drive — Project 06 — was launched to build a unified population database and e‑ID platform (VNeID); the SBV used that infrastructure to require banks to validate customers’ biometric data, framing the move as a fraud‑prevention and payment‑security measure [6] [2]. Vietnamese authorities also moved to phase out older paper IDs and push chip‑embedded citizen ID cards and level‑2 electronic IDs as standard identity sources for banking [4] [1].
2. Deadlines and regulatory instruments: what changed and when
Circulars and SBV rules set staggered deadlines: individual biometric registration was enforced from around January 1, 2025 for many retail customers and later extended to corporate legal representatives by mid‑2025 (e.g., July 1 for firms) under Circulars 17/2024 and 18/2024 and related guidance [4] [5]. Other rules stopped accepting passports for banking transactions from January 1, 2026 and tightened ID requirements for digital wallets and e‑commerce [1] [3].
3. Scale of verification and claimed compliance metrics
The SBV reported completing biometric validation of more than 120.9 million individual customer records and over 1.2 million organizational accounts as part of its system‑wide effort, figures publicized by state reporting and biometric industry outlets [3] [1]. Those numbers are cited as evidence the authorities achieved mass coverage for “active digital payment accounts” [1].
4. Enforcement outcomes: transaction limits, freezes, and account removals
Sources document that unverified accounts faced progressive restrictions — losing access to online payments, QR and digital channels, and in many cases being limited to in‑person counter transactions — and that large‑scale deactivations or freezes affecting tens of millions of accounts were reported during 2025 (figures like “over 86 million” appear in multiple post‑2025 analyses) [6] [7] [8]. Industry commentary frames this as a coordinated “data‑cleansing” or compliance purge led by the SBV [6] [8].
5. Who was affected and why critics object
Journalists and analysts report that older people, rural residents and users with expired IDs or limited digital access bore the brunt of restrictions; critics, privacy advocates and some online communities characterized the regime as coercive data harvesting that concentrates biometric identifiers and can enable surveillance or greater state control of financial access [9] [6]. Some commentary links the measures to broader aims—cashless economy, OECD aspirations and fraud reduction—while warning about inclusion risks [6] [2].
6. Technical and procedural limits highlighted by industry
Banks and identity vendors noted practical hurdles: NFC read success rates, the logistics of in‑person biometric capture, and the need to integrate chip IDs with bank onboarding and ongoing “live” biometric checks for high‑value or new‑device transactions [4] [5]. Regulators and banks publicized adoption of multi‑modal biometrics (face, fingerprint) and calls for industry standards including presentation attack detection [3] [10].
7. Two competing interpretations: security vs. control
Official framing emphasizes fraud prevention, transaction security and modernization of payment rails; SBV and government sources cite high validation counts and drops in bank fraud as justification [3] [1]. Opponents frame the same moves as a coercive linkage of financial access to state biometrics that risks exclusion and concentrates sensitive data — a tension present across reporting and opinion pieces [6] [9].
8. What available sources do not mention
Available sources do not mention independent audits of the biometric database’s privacy safeguards, nor do they provide full public datasets verifying the SBV’s reported validation totals beyond agency summaries (not found in current reporting). They also do not provide court challenges or parliamentary votes overturning the circulars (not found in current reporting).
Contextual bottom line: multiple government and industry sources in 2024–25 describe a clear policy and regulatory pathway that required banks to verify and link accounts to biometric e‑IDs and that imposed service restrictions on unverified accounts; contemporaneous reporting documents both large‑scale compliance figures and significant controversy over exclusion and privacy [4] [3] [6].