On July 21 through 26, 2025, a working mission of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) led by Deputy Governor Pham Tien Dzung visited the Shanghai Free Trade Zone (FTZ) in China and the Astana International Financial Center (AIFC) in Kazakhstan.
Also attending the working mission, there were representatives from several entities of the SBV and leaders of a number of state-owned joint stock commercial banks, including Vietcombank, BIDV, Agribank.
In China, the mission had working sessions with senior leaders of the Shanghai Authority, the People's Bank of China - Shanghai Branch, the Shanghai FTZ Management Board, and a number of commercial banks operating in the FTZ.
According to the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government, the Shanghai FTZ was developed with the goal of promoting trade, facilitating tariffs and accelerating production, creating a foundation for an open, transparent and efficient business environment in accordance with international standards.
On that basis, financial services, including trade finance, cross-border banking services, insurance and international payments, have been gradually established and developed strongly to meet the needs of the real economy in the FTZ. This is a development process towards supporting and serving the production and trade economy.
The SBV’s mission meets representatives of the People's Bank of China - Shanghai Branch
According to the leader of the People's Bank of China - Shanghai Branch, the FTZ was established to pilot some controlled financial liberalization mechanisms, including more flexible foreign exchange policies, a free trade account mechanism, and specific risk supervisory institutions. This pilot has laid a foundation for expanding the institutional reforms throughout the financial sector in Shanghai and other FTZs in China. In addition, the presence of the big financial institutions in the Shanghai FTZ also helps strengthen Shanghai's role in the global network of financial centers, especially in the fields of cross-border settlements using the CNY, asset management and digital financial services.
In Kazakhstan, the mission had working meetings with the Central Bank of Kazakhstan, the AIFC Regulatory Authority, the AIFC Financial Services Authority (AFSA), and a number of banks operating in the AIFC.
The SBV’s mission and representatives of the AIFC Regulatory Authority take a photo together
At the AIFC, the banking operations do not play a central role but mainly support the development of the capital market. Unlike the conventional banking models, the banks in the AIFC are not allowed to mobilize deposits from the general population, neither provide retail banking services or use the local currency of Kazakhstan in most of the transactions. Instead, the banking system in the AIFC focuses on some specialized functions, including trade finance, corporate credit, investment banking services, and all are conducted in foreign currencies.
Towards the end of the study visits, Deputy Governor Pham Tien Dzung affirmed that the in-depth information exchanges on the monetary policy, the banking operations, the foreign exchange management, as well as the regulatory and supervisory mechanisms for the banking operations in the Shanghai FTZ and the AIFC have provided a lot of good practices for the SBV’s considerations and development of the international financial centers in Vietnam. Deputy Governor Pham Tien Dzung assessed that, for the banking sector, the AIFC is a systematic and modern model with a high reference value for Vietnam.
The SBV’s mission meets the Central Bank of Kazakhstan
Deputy Governor Pham Tien Dzung expressed his deep gratitude to the Chinese and Kazakhstani partners, and hoped that the working visits would further promote the practical and long-term cooperative relations between the SBV and the partners in the two countries in the finance and banking sector.
The Deputy Governor believed that Vietnam would soon realize the goal of building an international financial center toward integration, transparency and efficiency, meeting the international standards. In this process, the SBV hopes to continue receiving the technical assistance and more experience sharing from the foreign partners, while also encouraging the presence and more active participation of the international financial institutions in the ecosystem of the financial centers in Vietnam.
HY