A customer looks at a fraud warning sign at a commercial bank in HCM City. (Source: VNA)
Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - The StateBank of Vietnam (SBV) has proposed freezing the accounts of those suspected ofcommitting frauds.
The central bank also called for a ban onborrowing or renting bank accounts as well as certain intermediate paymentservices to improve account holders traceability and limitillegal activities in a draft amendment to a Government directive oncashless transactions.
Under the proposal, commercial banks couldfreeze accounts if they have sufficient evidence the accounts were usedfor or involved in fraudulent and illegal activates.
Accounts would also be frozen upon requestfrom one or more than one account holders (in cases of one account havingmultiple holders) or due to disputes among account holders.
Accounts may also be frozen to helprecover assets which were transferred by mistake.
The accounts would be unfrozen after theirholders provided proof that transactions were not illegal or fraudulent; orwhen legal disputes were settled among account holders.
The SBV also proposed a legal mechanism tocompensate for losses suffered by account holders in cases of wrongful accountfreezes.
Fraud has been on the rise in cashlesstransactions in recent times, especially by high-tech criminals who employincreasingly complex and difficult-to-track techniques.
There have been incidents in which peoplewere hired to open as many bank accounts as possible with commercial banks,which could be sold for up to 10 USD per account. Many suchaccounts were later used for illegal and fraudulent activities.
According to the SBV, current regulationson bank accounts, payment and transaction services in cashless systems mustbe improved to ensure security standards are met./.
