Structural Reform Is Essential For Vietnam Capital Market
Việt Nam’s capital market urgently requires a fundamental restructuring and a new mindset. This is necessary to realize its full, transformative potential in 2026 and beyond.
This was the central conclusion of the high-level ‘Vietnam Capital Market Outlook 2026’ forum, where experts identified critical structural bottlenecks and policy gaps. These continue to inhibit deeper capital mobilization, sustainable financing initiatives, and broader, more confident investor participation across all segments.
To unlock stable, long-term funding sources, the market must pivot away from its historical over-reliance on traditional bank credit. This dependency currently renders the corporate sector vulnerable to credit cycles and limits national growth potential.
Dr. Lê Minh Nghĩa, chairman of the Vietnam Financial Consulting Association, emphasized that a new approach is necessary. This encompasses modernized capital flow strategies, a coherent legal framework for managing digital assets, and an accelerated roadmap for developing Việt Nam’s international financial centre status.
Innovation in financial instruments is key to this transformation. This focuses on “Made in Vietnam” products like green bonds tied directly to carbon credits, tokenized securities utilizing blockchain technology, and other digital asset-backed products.
These innovative instruments are crucial not only for improving capital allocation efficiency but also for substantially expanding the domestic and international investor bases. This is especially true by attracting institutional and long-term funds such as pension, venture capital, and dedicated green investment funds, which provide the stable, patient capital essential for economic breakthroughs.
High-Tech Exports Drive Value Chain Advancement
Achieving a truly robust and diversified Vietnam capital market requires more than just innovative products. It demands deep regulatory and infrastructural modernization to meet rigorous international standards and support higher growth targets.
Nguyễn Đức Hiển, deputy head of the Central Committee for Policy and Strategy, noted that while the corporate bond and equity markets have seen growth. Their current depth, liquidity, and level of investor participation still fall short of fully satisfying the nation’s long-term financing needs, underscoring the urgency for comprehensive product quality enhancement.
From the regulatory side, Bùi Hoàng Hải, deputy chairman of the State Securities Commission of Vietnam (SSC), detailed ongoing steps aimed at increasing market openness, transparency, and meeting the specific criteria. These criteria are required for the anticipated stock market upgrade to emerging market status.
A key infrastructural milestone is the planned launch of a Central Counterparty (CCP) mechanism. This is a centralized clearing and settlement system expected to begin operations in early 2027.
This CCP is vital for reducing settlement risk, improving operational efficiency, and aligning Việt Nam’s infrastructure with global market practices. This is a non-negotiable step for attracting large-scale foreign institutional investment.
Furthering this development, the SSC is actively studying the introduction of new financial tools. This includes infrastructure bonds, green bonds, various derivative products, and expanded market indices.
All these are designed to broaden the investment toolkit and enhance the quality and range of financing options available to the rapidly modernizing corporate sector.
Long-Term Trajectory And Future Competitiveness
The consensus view among market leaders is that structural enhancements must be translated into tangible market outcomes by 2026. This is necessary to realize a developmental breakthrough for the Vietnam capital market.
The nation’s long-term growth model must strategically evolve from one reliant heavily on capital and labor accumulation. It needs to move to one driven primarily by science, technology, innovation, and improved productivity.
This was articulated by Dr. Cấn Văn Lực, chief economist at BIDV and member of the Prime Minister’s Advisory Council. In this context, the financial market’s ability to efficiently mobilize and allocate capital becomes a fundamental prerequisite for achieving sustainable, high-income economic transformation.
Nguyễn Sơn, representing the Vietnam Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation (VDSC), strongly advocated for comprehensive improvements to the entire market infrastructure. This includes the payment, clearing, and custody systems, alongside significant enhancements in the quality of corporate disclosures and the full development of investor rights mechanisms.
These critical infrastructure and governance improvements are viewed as indispensable for boosting overall investor confidence, advancing the market toward greater transparency. They are also necessary for successfully meeting the requirements for full international integration and the coveted emerging market classification.
The ultimate goal of these structural changes is to foster deeper liquidity, introduce a wider array of financing tools, ensure improved investor protection, and establish greater stability. Thus, enabling the Vietnam capital market to become a dynamic, resilient, and indispensable engine for national economic growth throughout the coming decade.
Regional Financial Market Impact And De-Risking
Việt Nam’s push to upgrade its Vietnam capital market status and implement the Central Counterparty (CCP) mechanism by early 2027 represents a critical inflection point for Southeast Asian finance. It extends its impact far beyond Hà Nội.
The successful transition from a Frontier to an Emerging Market status, as targeted by FTSE Russell and potentially MSCI, would trigger a mandatory reallocation of billions of US dollars. This shift of capital is from passive funds that track these indices, moving primarily from smaller regional peers like the Philippines and Pakistan into Vietnamese equities.
This influx of stable, long-term institutional capital is necessary to finally counterbalance the high volatility historically caused by the retail investor dominance (estimated at 85 to 95 percent of trading value). This rebalancing will improve market efficiency and reduce the cost of equity for Vietnamese firms, making them more competitive against regionally listed peers in Malaysia and Thailand.
The CCP mechanism is the most crucial structural reform. Its implementation removes the pre-funding requirement, a major friction point for large foreign custodians and fund managers who cite it as a core barrier to deep market access.
By eliminating this settlement risk and aligning with global delivery-versus-payment (DvP) standards, Việt Nam significantly de-risks its market. This is a powerful signal to institutional investors who operate with strict compliance mandates.
This move is a direct competitive play against regional exchanges that still utilize less efficient settlement systems.
The diversification into new instruments like green bonds and infrastructure bonds also positions the Vietnam capital market as a unique financing gateway for climate-resilient infrastructure projects in the Mekong region. This offers an alternative to Singapore’s established debt market and challenges the perception that only major economies can host sophisticated, environmentally focused financing instruments.
The overall outcome is the enhancement of ASEAN’s financial market depth. This provides an essential high-growth alternative for capital allocation and solidifying Việt Nam’s status not only as a manufacturing powerhouse but also as a rapidly modernizing financial center.
