Three major challenges facing Vietnam's financial sector in 2026

eKYC - fast and reliable at the same time

According to the State Bank of Vietnam, by end of 2025 approximately 87% of Vietnamese adults held a bank account, the majority opened via eKYC (electronic Know Your Customer). However, the experience remains fragmented: each bank runs its own process, forcing users to repeat verification multiple times from document photos and selfies to voice authentication. This not only drives up costs but also scatters biometric data across systems, expanding the attack surface.

At the same time, eKYC fraud is growing more sophisticated. Cases of identity spoofing using deepfake video, silicone masks, and synthetic documents have emerged. A report by FPT Digital found that approximately 4–6% of eKYC applications in 2025 fell into high-risk categories requiring additional manual verification.

Account fraud and transfer scams

According to the Department of Cybersecurity and High-Tech Crime Prevention (A05), 2025 recorded over 600,000 online fraud cases with estimated losses of nearly VND 19,000 billion. The majority involved bank account takeovers, where fraudsters impersonated police officers or bank staff to instruct victims to transfer money or install malicious applications.

A common thread across these fraud scenarios: victims have no quick way to verify whether the caller or sender is genuinely a bank employee. Without a standardised national digital trust system, every interaction relies on subjective trust.

Rising AML/CFT compliance costs

AML (anti-money laundering) and CFT (counter-terrorism financing) are mandatory requirements for all financial institutions. According to LexisNexis, banks in Southeast Asia are spending approximately 0.8–1.2% of revenue on compliance activities, a significant figure in a margin-competitive environment.

Much of this cost lies in manual processes: customer identity verification, sanctions list screening, and transaction origin reconciliation. As customer bases grow into the tens of millions, the "manual + disconnected systems" model quickly becomes a bottleneck costly and difficult to scale.

This is not just a cost problem but an operational capacity problem, where compliance must be automated, standardised, and verifiable in real time.

🔑 Read more: Why is Vietnam building a national blockchain platform?

Why national-level Layer 1 blockchain is the right approach

The difference between public blockchain and national blockchain in finance

First, a clarification: blockchain serving Vietnam's banking and finance sector is not Bitcoin or Ethereum. This is a permissioned blockchain model where only licensed entities such as banks, insurance companies, and fintechs are authorised to operate nodes or issue digital credentials. End users do not need to hold cryptocurrency or pay transaction fees to use services.

The core difference lies in the objective. Public blockchains target digital assets and open markets; national blockchains target the construction of a shared trust infrastructure layer. The platform's role is similar to an interbank payment system: standardising how institutions verify, exchange, and reconcile data, rather than each party operating a separate system.

Three key properties for the financial sector

A national blockchain platform, if properly designed, can simultaneously deliver three properties that centralised systems struggle to achieve together.

• First, immutability and auditability: every transaction and event is digitally signed and cryptographically timestamped it cannot be altered or deleted. This is the foundation for audit trail systems in AML/CFT, where every action can be traced back and verified.

• Second, independent verifiability: regulators, auditors, or partners can verify data without needing direct access to a bank's internal systems. Transparency is enhanced without sacrificing commercial confidentiality.

• Third, decentralised identity: customers hold a unified digital identity (DID) that works across multiple institutions. Banks do not need to store full identity data only the relevant credentials reducing the risk of data breaches and duplicate verification.

🔑 Read more: Comparing national Layer 1 blockchains: How NDAChain, EBSI, and BSN lead the way

Four specific applications of blockchain in banking and finance

1. Shared eKYC - verify once, use everywhere

With national identity infrastructure, a customer who completes KYC at Bank A can receive a digital credential confirming their eKYC is complete. When opening an account at Bank B, the customer presents this credential for verification via the national Layer 1 blockchain in seconds with no need to repeat the entire process.

🔑 Read more: Virtual Identity: Protecting Users in Cyberspace

The value of this model:

• Customers save time and avoid submitting documents multiple times.

• Bank B reduces onboarding costs by 40–60%.

• Biometric data is not duplicated, it remains only at the institution that first conducted KYC.

This model has already been deployed in Singapore (SingPass MyInfo) and South Korea (MyData). With the did:nda standard registered in the W3C DID Method Registry, Vietnam has the foundation to build a shared eKYC system suited to national scale.

3. Caller and message sender identity verification preventing impersonation fraud

Impersonating bank employees is one of the most common fraud scenarios today. With DID infrastructure, each employee is issued a Verifiable Credential by their bank.

When a call or message is received, the customer's banking app can automatically verify the identity of the contact via the national blockchain and display authenticated information such as: "Bank X - Employee Y - Department Z."

🔑 Read more: NDAKey and the development direction for a self-sovereign identity infrastructure in Vietnam

A simple verification step, but one that fundamentally changes how users make decisions: from "trust or not" to "verifiable." Fraudsters cannot generate valid credentials from a legitimate issuing institution, thereby eliminating the majority of impersonation fraud scenarios.

3. Suspicious account alerts - real-time risk sharing

Currently, when an account is identified as linked to fraud or money laundering, the information typically stays within the bank or is reported to regulators. Sharing between banks is slow, creating a time window during which fraudsters can continue moving funds across multiple accounts.

With a shared Layer 1 blockchain infrastructure, banks can record "risk flags" on-chain as hashes without exposing personal data but still maintaining full verifiability. When a transaction involving such an account arises, other banks' systems can automatically detect and alert in real time.

Core value:

• Fraud detection time reduced from hours to seconds

• An inter-bank risk-sharing network is established

• Personal data is protected while verifiability is maintained

This model is similar to systems like CIFAS in the United Kingdom, but upgraded to shared infrastructure level, where risk information is no longer siloed within individual institutions.

4. International trade documents and electronic letters of credit (LC)

A traditional letter of credit typically takes 5–7 days to process through multiple intermediaries, the issuing bank, advising bank, shipping line, and customs. Each party holds a separate version of the document, creating opportunities for discrepancies and disputes over validity.

With Layer 1 blockchain and DID/Verifiable Credentials standards, LCs can be issued as digital credentials. Parties update transaction status (delivery, customs clearance, etc.) via digitally signed Verifiable Presentations, so every change is verified and synchronised instantly from a single source of truth.

Core value:

• Processing time reduced from multiple days to under 24 hours

• Document version disputes eliminated

• Transparency and cross-border verifiability increased

The on-chain identity verification transaction between Vietnam and Indonesia conducted by NDAChain and GOE Alliance (14 April 2026) demonstrates that the platform is already ready for international commerce scenarios, a concrete step toward forming a regional digital trust infrastructure for ASEAN.

🔑 Read more: NDAChain and GOE Alliance Realize the First Cross-Border On-chain Transaction in Southeast Asia

Legal compliance: a dual benefit for banks

National blockchain is not just a technology tool, it is also a compliance tool. When every event is recorded with a digital signature and cryptographic trail, banks can demonstrate correct KYC/AML procedures not through paper records but through independently verifiable evidence.

• Vietnam's legal framework is gradually aligning with this direction. The Data Law 2024 requires data integrity and auditability. The Personal Data Protection Law 2025 focuses on access control and processing transparency. The Digital Technology Industry Law 2026 recognises digital assets and digital signatures. Additionally, Decision 21/2026/QĐ-TTg and the VIFC-HCMC sandbox create a testing environment for new models.

🔑 Read more: Law on Digital Technology Industry Takes Effect from January 1, 2026

Financial institutions that deploy early use cases on national blockchain infrastructure will hold a competitive advantage in both cost and compliance positioning throughout 2026–2028.

Challenges and deployment roadmap

The first is system integration. Most Vietnamese banks run on core banking systems such as Temenos, Oracle Flexcube, or Finacle, none of which were designed to connect directly with blockchain. The viable approach is incremental integration via API, but this requires thorough planning and investment.

The second is a data-sharing culture. Traditional banks view customer data as a competitive advantage. Changing this requires a neutral coordination mechanism from the State Bank of Vietnam or the Vietnam Banks Association to establish common standards and equitably distribute benefits.

🔑 Read more: Blockchain and decentralized identity: A new trust infrastructure for a secure and transparent digital society

The third is people and usage habits. Even when the infrastructure is ready, users still need time to transition from sending documents by email to using self-sovereign identity applications like NDAKey.

NDAChain approaches this with a 5–7 year roadmap, using a multi-level integration model ranging from lightweight verification (off-chain VC) to dedicated Domain Chain deployment for large financial institutions. This is not a one-time switch but a controlled evolution.

Digital trust as a competitive advantage in banking and finance

Over the past 50 years, banks have competed on branch network size, interest rates, and products. Over the next 10 years, competition will be decided by the ability to deliver digital trust to customers, the assurance that their identity cannot be stolen, every transaction can be traced, and every bank interaction has a verifiable origin.

🔑 Read more: Building digital trust: The foundation for a prosperous Vietnam

National Layer 1 blockchain is not the only solution, but it is the core infrastructure layer for raising the standard of trust across the entire industry. NDAChain is built around a clear principle: financial institutions serve as professional issuers and verifiers, customers own their own identity, and the national blockchain platform acts as the trust intermediary, neutral, open, and verifiable.

The next round of competition in finance will no longer be about the number of branches, but about the quality of trust infrastructure each institution can provide.

👉 Learn more about NDAChain - Vietnam's national blockchain infrastructure at https://ndachain.vn/en.