Before the August Revolution in 1945, Vietnam was a feudal-colonial country under the French colonialists’ rule. The banking and credit system was founded and protected by the French colonialists through the Indochinabank, which functioned as both the central issuing bank and a multi-functional trading bank with commercial bankingand investment operations.
After the August Revolution, one of the key tasks of the Revolutionary Government was to build an independent and autonomous monetary and banking system to serve for the national cause of national reconstruction and defense. This task was gradually realized in the early 1950s, when the anti-French resistance war obtained strong progress with significant victories in the battlefields, and the continually expanding liberated area. In that context, the development required the economic and financial operations to be improved and promoted to meet the new requirements.
On the basis of the new economic and financial policy set out in the 2nd Congress of the Vietnam Workers’ Party (February,1951), on May 6, 1951, President Ho Chi Minh signed Order No.15/SL on the establishment of Vietnam National Bank with the key tasks including: managing the issuance of banknotes and organizing a money circulation system; managing the State’s treasury; conducting credit policies in order to promote economic production, and coordinating with the trade authorities for the monetary management and to engage in the monetary war against the enemy. The establishment of Vietnam National Bank was a historical milestone, the progressive result of the struggle process to develop an independent and autonomous monetary and credit system, marking a new development step, i.e, changing the quality of the national monetary and credit area.
During the anti-American resistance war (1955 to 1975), the activities of Vietnam National Bank focused on enhancing the management and regulating the circulation of money under the socialist economic management principles; formulating and improving the credit policy aiming at promoting the state-owned economy and the collective economy; expanding and improving non-cash payment operations, establishing the role of banks as payment centers of the economy; expanding the international credit and payment relations; implementing the state monopoly over foreign exchange operations.
On October 26, 1961, Vietnam National Bank was renamed as the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV).
The time between 1975 to 1985 was a period of post-war economic recovery. The SBV had quickly taken over the banking system of the former Southern Vietnamese government, recalled the former banknotes in both the South and the North and issued new banknotes of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. In this period, the SBV system basically functioned as a budget tool, not conducting monetary trading activities in line with the market principles.
On March, 1988, the Council of Ministers issued Decree No. 53/HDBT with the fundamental orientations of transforming the entire banking system toward commercial operations. In May 1990, the State Council enacted and publicized the Ordinance on the State Bank of Vietnam and the Ordinance on banks, credit co-operatives and finance companies. The promulgation of these two Ordinances officially changed the operational mechanism of Vietnam’s banking system from a one-tier to a two-tier system, in which the SBV performs the State management of banking and currency trading activities, and conducts the tasks of a central bank; meanwhile commercial banks and credit institutions implement currency trading, credit, payment, foreign exchange activities and banking services within the frameworks of laws.
From 1990 until now, the functions, tasks, mandates and organizational structure of the SBV has continued to be supplemented and improved in line with the 1997 Law on the State Bank of Vietnam (as amended and supplemented in 2003), the 2010 Law on the State Bank of Vietnam and the Government’s Decrees stipulating the functions, tasks, mandates and organizational structure of the SBV (Decree No.88/1998/ND-CP dated November 2, 1988; Decree No.52/2003/ND-CP dated May 19,2003; Decree No.96/2008/ND-CP dated August 26, 2008; Decree No.156/2013/ND-CP dated November 11, 2013; Decree No. 16/2017/ND-CP dated February 17, 2017; and Decree No. 102/2022/ND-CP dated December 12, 2022).