Press Release on issuance of Circular No.11/2016/TT-NHNN
The Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) issued Circular No. 11/2016/TT-NHNN (Circular 11) on June 29, 2016 to revise several regulations on December 31, 2015 on providing services of foreign currency receiving and payment, and operations of agents for receiving and payment of foreign currencies, and individual foreign currency exchange bureaus.
Circular No. 11 revises, supplements and abolishes several regulations of Circular No. 34/2015/TT-NHNN on December 31, 2015 on providing services of foreign currency receiving and payment (Circular 34); Decision No 21/2008/QD-NHNN dated July 11, 2008 on the management of foreign currency exchange agents (Decision 21); abolishes several substances of Circular 07/2001/TT-NHNN dated August 31 (hereafter called Circular 07), 2001 to guide the implementation of currency management in cross-border regions and border-gate economic zones of Vietnam promulgated with Decision No. 140/2000/QD-TTg by the Prime Minister on December 8, 2000 and Circular 29/2015/TT-NHNN dated December 22, 2015 of the SBV to revise several legal texts stipulating the submission dossiers with notarized copies in order to ensure the consistence of the relevant legal regulations.
The main contents of the circular are as follows:
For revising, supplementing several regulations of Circular 34:
Revising the regulation on dossiers for the approval of duration extension for direct receipt and payment of foreign currencies; and approval for duration extension of foreign exchange payment agent stipulated in Article 11 and Article 14 of Circular 34 in order to make the conformity of these regulations with the Decree of the Government.
Supplementing several contents to be in line with the operations of foreign currency payment agents including: (i) regulation on credit institutions being licensed to operate as foreign currency payment agents for the economic organizations, the credit institutions and receive foreign currencies transferred from credit institutions and authorized economic organizations; and (ii) the advance payment for beneficiaries conducted in accordance with the agreements in the contract between the agents and credit institutions, and authorized economic organizations.
Abolishing Article 10 and 13 of the Circular 34 to eliminate the provision on conditions of services of receiving and payment of foreign currencies.
2. Amending, supplementing and abolishing several articles of Decision 21:
Revising and supplementing contents related to dossiers for the approval of registration for forex agents to be in accordance and compliance with regulations of the Government on the condition of the operation of forex agents.
Supplementing regulations on the effective duration of the Certificate on the registration for forex agents based on the effective duration of the forex agent contract signed with credit institutions.
Stipulating the transition provision for the operations of foreign exchange agents that have been granted with the Certificate of registration for forex agent before the Circular 11 takes effect, specifically, the forex agents got Certificate of registration for forex agent before effect date of this Circular, are allowed to continue their operation in accordance with the granted registration certificate, excluding those agents having overdue contract or their contracts cease to be effective before the effective date of this Circular.
Abolishing Item 6 of Circular 07, Item 2 of Article 1 of Circular 29: To be in compliance with Decree No.60/NQ-CP of the Government dated December 17, 2010 on the simplification of administrative procedures under the SBV’s jurisdiction, the Circular abolishes the regulations on procedures to license the exchange bureaus of the individuals.
Meanwhile, the Circular 11 stipulate the regulation on the continuance for the operation of individual exchange bureaus that have been granted with the Certificate of registration before the Circular 11 takes effect: The individuals have been granted by the SBV the certificate of registration of exchange bureau in line with the regulation of Circular 07, are allowed to continue conducting foreign exchange services in line with the regulation of this Circular.
The Circular takes effect from August 13, 2016.