Circular 09 Updates Custody Rules for SBV Repos and OMOs

Circular 09/2026/TT-NHNN — signed May 19, 2026 and effective July 4, 2026 — replaces the three-and-a-half-year-old Circular 16/2022/TT-NHNN as Vietnam's governing framework for how credit institutions hold and use valuable papers at the State Bank of Vietnam. For compliance officers and treasury teams at VIFC-member banks, the timing is significant: the circular goes live just as the first wave of VIFC subsidiary banks is standing up its operational infrastructure, and several of the changes land directly on account-opening procedures, collateral eligibility, and insolvency handling.

What This Circular Actually Governs#

The SBV's valuable paper custody framework is the infrastructure layer beneath every open market operation (OMO), repo transaction, and standing facility. When a bank needs liquidity from the SBV, it pledges eligible securities from its SBV custody account. When the SBV conducts OMOs to manage system liquidity, it transacts against the same pool of custodied instruments.

Circular 09/2026 — 3 chapters, 22 articles — governs how credit institutions (CIs) and foreign bank branches (FBBs) open and maintain those accounts, which instruments qualify, and how rights over custodied securities are transferred, pledged, or escrowed. It does not change monetary policy settings or OMO volumes; it changes the legal and operational rules of the collateral system those operations run on.

Four Changes That Matter for VIFC-Zone Banks#

1. Electronic dossiers for account opening#

The most immediately actionable change is procedural. Custody account opening and associated administrative procedures can now be conducted entirely through electronic channels, consistent with Vietnam's Law on Electronic Transactions. Previously, the process required physical submission.

For a foreign bank branch or newly incorporated VIFC subsidiary bank establishing its SBV custody account for the first time, this removes a logistical friction point — particularly relevant for institutions whose documentation chains run through offshore parent entities. The circular also streamlines the documentation requirements themselves, though the precise list of documents removed versus retained requires review of the full circular text available on thư viện pháp luật (Vietnam's official legal document library).

2. A new addition to the eligible instrument list#

Article 4 of Circular 09/2026 sets out the expanded instrument list. The full set now covers:

• SBV bills (tín phiếu NHNN)
• Government bonds (trái phiếu Chính phủ)
• Treasury bills (tín phiếu Kho bạc)
• 100%-government-guaranteed bonds
• Local government bonds (by Governor decision, period by period)
• VAMC special bonds and VAMC market-value NPL bonds
• State-owned commercial bank bonds — banks where the state holds more than 50% of charter capital
• Non-special-control CI bonds and other corporate bonds
• Other instruments by Governor decision

Minimum denomination is VND 100,000 or multiples thereof. Foreign-currency instruments follow instrument-specific rules.

State-owned commercial bank bonds are a new addition to this list under Circular 09/2026. Whether this category was explicitly excluded or simply absent from Circular 16/2022 requires verification against the prior text, which has not been independently reviewed for this article. The practical effect, in any case, is an expanded collateral universe: Vietcombank, BIDV, VietinBank, and Agribank — all majority state-owned — can now have their bonds held as eligible SBV custody instruments. Treasury teams at these four banks, and at institutions that hold their paper, should note the downstream liquidity implications for repo and OMO eligibility.

3. Insolvency and restructuring provisions — new territory#

Available summaries of Circular 16/2022 do not indicate it addressed corporate transformation scenarios for SBV custody accounts; the full text of that circular should be reviewed to confirm. Circular 09/2026 fills that gap directly, covering: division, separation, consolidation, merger, dissolution, bankruptcy, and compulsory transfer.

This matters in two contexts specific to the current VIFC moment.

First, the ongoing wave of VIFC subsidiary formations — where domestic banks are incorporating legally separate entities to operate inside the VIFC zone — creates new holding structures that sit between parent banks and the SBV. The subsidiary's SBV custody account is a distinct legal relationship from the parent's. What happens to custodied positions if the subsidiary is wound up, reabsorbed, or restructured is now governed by express rules rather than by analogy to general corporate law.

Second, the SBV's compulsory transfer regime — exercised historically with several weak banks, and still a live risk-management tool — now has explicit custody-account procedures. Banks operating under special control, or acquiring institutions that may have been subject to compulsory transfer, need to map their custody positions against the new provisions before July 4.

For context on the subsidiary formation wave and its structural logic, see our earlier coverage of the domestic bank subsidiary trend and its VIFC implications.

4. ISIN coding: conditional adoption#

Custody papers will be managed under VSDC's and the SBV's trading desk code system, with ISIN adoption specified as applying "when needed." This is incremental rather than transformative — Vietnam is not migrating its entire SBV custody infrastructure to ISIN tomorrow — but it is a meaningful signal.

ISIN is the common identifier used by international custodians, clearing houses, and collateral management systems. Its conditional inclusion in the circular creates a legal basis for ISIN-based processing in SBV custody operations without mandating it universally. For VIFC-zone banks whose parent institutions run ISIN-based treasury management systems, this reduces the translation layer required to reconcile SBV custody positions with internal books.

The VSDC connection is relevant here. Decree 145/2026, which governs VNX and VSDC's financial management framework, sits in the same infrastructure layer — see our coverage at Decree 145/2026: How Vietnam's Market Infrastructure Gets Financially Governed. The gradual ISIN adoption at the SBV custody level converges with VSDC's own international-standards trajectory.

Ownership Transfer, Pledge, and Escrow: What Changed#

The circular amends rules governing beneficial ownership transfers, pledging of custodied securities as collateral, and escrow arrangements. The stated rationale is alignment with "newly arising operations in the activities of the State Bank of Vietnam and participating organisations" — language that likely reflects repo market evolution and any expansion of OMO counterparty eligibility since 2022. The specific operations that triggered these amendments are not specified in available summaries; the full circular text should be reviewed by any institution with active repo or collateral pledge arrangements at the SBV.

What to Do Before July 4#

The effective date is six weeks away. Three concrete actions for VIFC-zone compliance and treasury teams:

1. Audit existing custody account documentation. Confirm your current dossier meets the Circular 09/2026 requirements, even if you opened the account under Circular 16/2022. The circular's transitional provisions — not yet detailed in available summaries — should clarify whether existing accounts are grandfathered or require re-filing; review the full text to confirm.

2. Map custodied instrument holdings against the updated Article 4 list. If you hold instruments that are newly eligible (state-owned commercial bank bonds) or that sit in categories now governed by Governor-decision inclusion (local government bonds, other corporate bonds), update your collateral eligibility registers accordingly.

3. Review holding structures for insolvency-provision exposure. If your VIFC subsidiary has or will have its own SBV custody account, legal teams should map the new restructuring provisions against the subsidiary's constitutional documents and the parent's contingency plans.

The circular does not change OMO participation eligibility rules — those are governed separately — but it changes the legal quality of the collateral positions underlying every OMO transaction. Getting the custody plumbing right before July 4 is a precondition for uninterrupted participation in SBV liquidity operations.

This article was last updated on 24 May 2026. The full text of Circular 09/2026/TT-NHNN is available via thư viện pháp luật (Vietnam's official legal document library). We will update this article as transitional guidance is issued by the SBV.