Swift Lends Hand in Vietnam
February 2, 2009
Messaging consortium Swift, under a memorandum of understanding signed last month, will connect the Vietnam Securities Depository (VSD) to its members. Though no timetable has been announced, Swift has begun planning the project, which will entail linking VSD to the Swift network and then expanding connectivity to Vietnam's market participants.
"This initiative aims to advance the securities sector in Vietnam toward the goal of full automation of operational procedures and connectivity, reducing overall processing cost and time while eliminating risk," said VSD chief executive Phuong Hoang Lan Huong in a statement.
"This is the first time we will have a securities market infrastructure like the VSD on Swift in Vietnam," said Adam Wilson, Swift's securities market manager for the Asia-Pacific region, in an interview. "The intention is to ensure that we have the connectivity option for every depository member in the Vietnamese market ... to help automate the securities clearing and settlement flows." As of now, said Wilson, the Vietnamese depository hasn't indicated whether Swift will be the only system or one of several. "Obviously, Swift wants to be the only solution," he added.
Wenli Yuan, a Beijing-based analyst for Celent, said the Vietnamese securities industry's technology infrastructure is a work in progress. "The VSD and its depository members currently do not have standardized electronic links," said Yuan. Swift connectivity will bring trading procedures in line with international best practices, she said, and serve as "a good foundation for future steps to implement equities registration, clearing and settlement, corporate actions and cross-border messaging."
Swift, which entered Vietnam in 1994, has 62 customers in the country exchanging more than 5 million messages per year over its network.
