On the afternoon of June 10, continuing the 5th Session, under the chairmanship of National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue, the National Assembly held a plenary discussion in the hall on the draft Law on Credit Institutions (amended). Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Nguyen Duc Hai chaired the meeting.
Participating in the discussion on the draft Law on Credit Institutions (amended), National Assembly Deputy Mai Van Hai, Provincial Party Committee member, Deputy Head of the National Assembly Delegation of Thanh Hoa province, highly agreed with the Government's Submission, the Verification report of the National Assembly's Economic Committee and agreed on the necessity to amend the Law on Credit Institutions.
Commenting on policy banks, delegate Mai Van Hai suggested more specific regulations on the organization of operations and financial mechanisms; even the handling of bad debts of policy banks is different from the handling of bad debts of other credit institutions.
Regarding the People's Credit Fund Board of Directors, there is a regulation that the Chairman of the People's Credit Fund Board of Directors cannot hold office for more than two consecutive terms. Delegate Mai Van Hai suggested that it should be considered not to stipulate that the Chairman of the People's Credit Fund Board of Directors cannot hold office for more than two terms. According to delegate Mai Van Hai, because the People's Credit Fund is an economic organization, if it is trusted by the Congress of Members, it can be re-elected for many terms. Furthermore, the staff working for the People's Credit Fund must have qualities, prestige, qualifications, and capacity; if the regulation is no more than two terms, it will also be a difficult problem in the personnel work of the People's Credit Fund.
Regarding Article 171 on the operation of the People's Credit Fund in the draft Law, the Government is assigned to regulate the scope of operation; delegate Mai Van Hai suggested that the scope of operation of the People's Credit Fund should be clearly defined (the Fund mainly operates to support its members) to avoid an overly broad scope of operation, which could lead to high risks. Therefore, it is recommended that the Law should stipulate that the scope of operation of the People's Credit Fund mainly operates within a commune or town; and in the case of operations outside the commune or town, there must be very strict conditions to ensure the operation of the Fund.
In Article 184 on procedures for seizing secured assets, delegate Mai Van Hai proposed to stipulate that credit institutions at foreign bank branches and organizations that buy, sell, and handle bad debts are allowed to seize secured assets of bad debts with the support of local authorities, without the need for an agreement in the contract.
Clause 5, Article 154 stipulates the responsibilities of local authorities and police, in addition to ensuring security and order, they have the duty to support organizations in buying and selling, handling bad debts in seizing secured assets; the important new point is that if there is no cooperation, a record will be made and the record is a document that replaces the record of property handover in the dossier for granting land use right certificates. However, this provision is not strictly ensured, because in the 2013 Land Law and the Land Law being amended, there is no provision that the record of property seizure is one of the types of documents to be considered for granting land use right certificates.
Therefore, delegate Mai Van Hai suggested that in case of non-cooperation, there should be regulations assigning competent authorities to decide to enforce the seizure and hand over collateral assets to credit institutions, foreign bank branches, and organizations that buy, sell, and handle bad debt.
Commenting on this draft Law, National Assembly Delegate Cam Thi Man, a full-time member of the National Assembly Delegation of Thanh Hoa Province, said that the amendment of the Law on Credit Institutions is of great importance in order to overcome shortcomings and limitations, ensure the unity and synchronization of the legal system, facilitate the safe and effective operation of credit institutions, and enhance the role of State management in the monetary and banking sectors. Therefore, she highly agrees with the necessity of amending the Law on Credit Institutions this time, and proposes to pass it at two sessions.
Delegate Cam Thi Man said that, regarding the provisions in Clause 5, Article 10 on issues related to the temporary suspension of transactions by credit institutions, the draft law has not yet provided for specific regulations on related issues. Accordingly: For direct transactions, the draft stipulates that "when transactions are suspended during official transaction hours, credit institutions and foreign bank branches must post at the transaction location at least 24 hours before the suspension of transactions". Although there are posting regulations, it is unclear and not specific about what is posted such as the scope, limits of types of suspended transactions, suspension time and how the posting time is implemented...?
Regarding the suspension of electronic transactions, the draft stipulates that “...credit institutions and foreign bank branches must publicly disclose the incident and notify the plan or results of the remediation within 06 hours after the occurrence of the transaction suspension error.” This provision has not clearly and fully stated whether the disclosure is the disclosure of the transaction suspension or the disclosure of the incident, the plan or results of the remediation of the incident leading to the suspension of transactions. In fact, the suspension of transactions does not necessarily stem from the incident or the transaction suspension error, but can be due to different causes and reasons that also lead to the credit institution having to suspend transactions. Next, how the information, announcement, and public disclosure of the suspension of transactions is carried out, the content, time, and specific means in the electronic environment have not been regulated.
Thus, the posting, announcement and disclosure of information on the suspension of transactions for direct transactions as well as transactions by electronic means must fully regulate the issues mentioned above to ensure feasibility and effectiveness; ensure compatibility and consistency with the provisions of the draft Law on Electronic Transactions (amended) which is also being considered for approval at this session.
Clause 5, Article 10 of the draft also stipulates: In case of suspension of transactions for 5 working days or more, credit institutions and foreign bank branches shall comply with the provisions at Point e, Clause 1, Article 29 of this Law.
This content refers to Point e, Clause 1, Article 29 of this Law. However, Point e stipulates that in case a credit institution temporarily suspends its business operations for 5 days or more, it must obtain written approval from the State Bank before suspending its operations, except in cases of temporary suspension of operations due to force majeure events. The content of Point e as well as other points and clauses in Article 29 of the draft law do not have provisions on posting, announcing, and publicly informing about the suspension of transactions in this case, including temporary suspension of operations due to force majeure events.
Thus, the failure to clearly stipulate the need to post information and publicly announce the suspension of transactions in this case, even if the suspension is due to a force majeure event, does not ensure the spirit of the provisions in Article 10 on “Protection of customers’ rights”. In fact, the announcement and public announcement of information on the suspension of business operations of a credit institution is one of the legal bases for excluding the legal liability of customers to third parties related to the suspension of transactions. Therefore, it is necessary to supplement the provisions on the announcement and public announcement of information on the suspension of operations in the above case.
The Draft Law in Articles 10, 29 and 140 is using the phrases “stop trading” and “temporary suspension of operations” to refer to the same content, which is inconsistent or may lead to different interpretations during the implementation process when the Law comes into effect. Therefore, it is recommended that it be revised accordingly.
The provisions of Article 131 are designed and constructed in Chapter 6 as one of the restrictions to ensure the safety of the operations of credit institutions. In a specific study, delegate Cam Thi Man said that it is necessary to consider the reasonableness and necessity of this provision. Specifically, Article 131 stipulates that credit institutions are not allowed to do real estate business, except for the cases specified in Clause 1, Clause 2 and Clause 3. Thus, logically, not being allowed to do real estate business also means prohibiting credit institutions from doing real estate business and there are some cases of exclusion that do not violate the prohibition.
Considering the content of the provisions in Clause 1, Article 131 and comparing it with the current Law on Real Estate Business as well as the draft Law on Real Estate Business being considered for amendment at this Session, the provisions in Clause 1, Article 131 are not real estate business activities and therefore do not need to be excluded, nor do they violate prohibitions or restrictions to ensure safety for the operations of credit institutions.
Delegate Cam Thi Man also suggested that it is necessary to review the entire content of Article 131 to ensure the feasibility, consistency and unity of the law.
Quoc Huong
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