SSC pledges to tighten OTC rules

Chairman of the State Securities Commission (SSC) Vu Bang has vowed to rein in rampant transactions on the OTC stock exchange as a measure to reduce risks emerging from this fledgling market.

The chief regulator made the pledge in his first on-line talk with the public on March 21 from the office of the electronic newspaper run by the Communist Party of Viet Nam (CPV), where he received about 1,100 questions.
He said he understood that the over-the-counter (OTC) stock market has been operating in the absence of regulations.
The market lacks transparent information, is exposed to high risks of fraudulence and face collapses, he admitted.

Bang made it clear that his agency is taking steps to reduce the scale of OTC transactions by ordering all public companies, including unlisted ones, to register their operations again, hold training and refresher courses for staff and list shareholders in public.
They are also asked to invite auditors and make public information on the auditing results and management work in line with the securities regulation, said the SSC chief.

He also unveiled new rules on punishments against violations, including deliberately avoiding registration and any failure to follow existing rules on deposit making and registration by public companies.
These efforts aim to reduce risks to payment in the OTC market, he emphasised.

The SSC will apply these rules to the transaction of unlisted shares and encourage investors to do transactions through securities companies, he added.

Deposit payments will be conducted through the securities deposit centre, thus gradually publicising OTC operations and attracting transactions onto the official market, he concluded.

Despite all these burning issues, Dao Duy Quat, Editor in chief of the CPV electronic newspaper, said the Viet Nam stock market has made a turning point in its development, catching interests of an increasing number of investors and CEOs of financial and banking institutions both at home and abroad

Source: VNA