Brick & Mortar To Digital Assets: Big Vietnam Change Allows Digital Assets, IP As Collateral
Vietnam's Ministry of Finance is proposing a sweeping overhaul of its small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) support framework, aiming to unlock bank lending by allowing companies to pledge digital assets and intellectual property as collateral. The draft amendment, currently open for public consultation, represents a significant shift for the Southeast Asian nation's banking sector, which has traditionally relied heavily on real estate to secure loans. The policy seeks to ease credit constraints for smaller businesses, which form the backbone of Vietnam's economy but frequently face financing bottlenecks.
Key takeaways: Banks can accept digital assets, virtual assets, intellectual property, and future-formed assets as new forms of collateral. The lending focus shifts from physical property to business plans and credit ratings — a cash-flow-led model. If approved by the National Assembly, the law is slated to take effect July 1, 2027.
The proposed changes look to modernize credit risk assessment. Under the draft guidelines, credit institutions will be encouraged to evaluate loan applications based on cash flow projections, production viability, and verified credit ratings, rather than strict real estate valuation.
The move addresses long-standing complaints from local tech startups and innovative firms that possess high-value intellectual property or digital infrastructure but lack land titles to secure expansion capital.
The ministry is also expanding the definition of eligible businesses to capture a larger share of the corporate sector. Under the new rules, micro-enterprises qualify with annual revenue up to 10 billion VND or up to 10 social insurance participants; small enterprises up to 100 billion VND or 100 participants; and medium enterprises up to 400 billion VND or 300 participants.
The draft amendment will continue to undergo regulatory review and public feedback before heading to the National Assembly for a final vote.
While these rules are yet to be fully analysed for feasibility and impact, the move definitely shows the increasing acceptance of digital assets as legitimate and fungible currency that creates an opening for other governments also to follow. India has been taking slow and steady steps in the direction of tokenisation of real world assets like land and could benefit from observing as a use case of this on a smaller economy like Vietnam and modify and use in its own context.