Vietnam Ministry of Finance Proposal: Small and medium-sized enterprises can use virtual assets as collateral to apply for loans from banks

Vietnam's Ministry of Finance plans to include digital assets, virtual assets, and intellectual property rights within the scope of acceptable collateral for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The draft is scheduled to be submitted to the National Assembly for review by October 2026, aiming to break through the financing bottleneck for over 98% of businesses.
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Vietnam's Ministry of Finance officially proposes allowing SMEs to use new types of assets such as digital assets, virtual assets, and intellectual property rights as collateral for bank loans. The relevant provisions have been incorporated into the draft amendment of the "Support Law for Small and Medium Enterprises," which is currently open for public consultation.

According to Viet Nam News, the draft is expected to be submitted to the National Assembly for review in October 2026, as an expansion of the 2017 version of the "Support Law for Small and Medium Enterprises."

The newly added acceptable collateral asset types include: future-formed assets, property rights, intellectual property rights, digital assets, virtual assets, and other legal assets.

The financing gap is the biggest pain point

The numbers highlight the severity of the problem: SMEs and individual households in Vietnam account for over 98% of all registered enterprises nationwide, but the related loan balance only accounts for about 19 to 20% of the total bank credit in the country. This stark disparity has long been a ceiling that Vietnamese private and tech startups find difficult to break through.

The traditional collateral system centers on real estate, but tech companies and startups often hold algorithm, software licenses, or digital platform assets, lacking tangible assets for banks to collateralize, leading to application rejections. This proposal from the Ministry of Finance aims to remove this barrier through regulatory reform.

Regulatory framework aligning with digital assets

Vietnam has been actively promoting digital economy legislation in recent years. The proposal to include virtual assets as legitimate collateral categories indicates that Hanoi authorities are gradually integrating crypto and digital assets into mainstream financial regulation, rather than remaining in a "gray area" of tacit acceptance.

If this move passes legislation smoothly, it will provide more flexible financing tools for tech startups within Vietnam. It will also pose new challenges for the banking system's risk control framework, as assessing the collateral value and liquidity of digital assets will be a core issue for subsequent supporting measures. The draft is currently in the public consultation stage, and the final details remain to be confirmed.