Continuing on the 15th National Assembly (NA)'s fourth session, on the afternoon of November 15, 2022, at the National Assembly Building, under the chairmanship of NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue, the Law on Money Laundering Prevention and Control (amended) was officially approved with 483 the votes, reaching 96.99%. The law shall come into effect officially on March 1, 2023.
The scene of the meeting
The Draft Law consists of 4 Chapters and 66 Articles, ensuring the consistency of the legal system and conformity with international treaties and commitments to which the Socialist Republic of Vietnam has signed to create feasibility and suitability with practical conditions of Viet Nam.
The Law on Money Laundering Prevention and Control provides measures to prevent, detect, and handle organizations and individuals that commit money laundering. In addition, it stipulates the responsibilities of agencies, organizations, and individuals, as well as activities in international cooperation, on money laundering prevention and control.
According to the Chairman of the NA’s Committee for Economic Affairs, Vu Hong Thanh, “The draft Law addresses and adjusts a number of areas about its subjects of application; terms explanation; activities of the reporting object; the principles of and international cooperation in money laundering prevention and control. In addition, the draft Law presents how to identify customers, collect, update, and verify customer information. Moreover, it gives specific criteria for classifying risks of money laundering and measures to reduce risks of money laundering when providing new products or services or products and services applying new technology; and reports on suspicious transactions and signs and postponing transactions to ensure feasibility, clarity, specificity, and ease of implementation in practice.”
The National Assembly’s delegates congratulated the Law on Money Laundering Prevention and Control (amended)
passed by the National Assembly
The draft Law provides that the Prime Minister takes charge of deciding the transaction level of high value that must be reported instead of specifically being stated in the law, which is suitable to the current context of the country in the process of rapid development with many changes and inherits current regulations. Receiving the opinions of the National Assembly’s deputies, the Standing Committee of the National Assembly requests the Prime Minister to issue the level of transactions with a considerable value that must be reported appropriately to ensure the requirements in money laundering prevention and control and not to create more burden on the reporting subjects based on socio-economic conditions in each period, international standards and practice.
The Law clearly stipulates the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance in presiding over and coordinating with relevant agencies to implement measures to prevent and control money laundering in the field of life insurance, securities, accounting services, award-winning video games, casinos, lottery, betting, and other services under the management of the Ministry of Finance.
Inspecting, examining, and supervising activities on preventing and controlling money laundering for reporting subjects in the fields as prescribed.
Coordinating with the State Bank of Viet Nam to assess the national risk of money laundering specified in Clause 1, Article 7 of the Law./.