SHAPING A SANDBOX FRAMEWORK FOR THE INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL CENTER OF HO CHI MINH CITY (VIFC-HCMC)

Vietnam International Financial Center in Ho Chi Minh City (VIFC-HCMC) co-hosted the scientific workshop titled “Shaping a Sandbox Framework for the International Financial Center of Ho Chi Minh City” on the morning of April 2 in Hanoi, in collaboration with the Global On-chain Economic Alliance, the University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, and the National Economics University.

At the workshop, Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Huu Huan, Vice Chairman of VIFC-HCMC, emphasized that no international financial center can succeed without a sandbox mechanism. Notably, the sandbox is not a “law-free zone,” but rather a framework designed with clear safeguards, shifting from prohibition-based management to experimentation-based governance, and from passive control to proactive supervision driven by real-time data.

VIFC-HCMC identifies the sandbox as a testing ground for key strategic sectors, including digital finance, digital assets, cross-border payments, real-world asset tokenization, green finance, and carbon markets. These are areas that still lack comprehensive legal frameworks but are considered to hold the greatest future value. According to Dr. Huan, without a sandbox, Vietnam will not be able to participate in this global arena.

Experiences from Singapore, Dubai, and the United Kingdom show that sandboxes are effective tools for balancing innovation and risk management. In Vietnam, the legal foundation has been established through Resolution No. 222/2025/QH15, positioning VIFC-HCMC as a national “policy laboratory” - a controlled environment for experimentation to generate empirical data, serving as a basis for long-term policymaking.

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