National Assembly deputy Trần Hoàng Ngân of the Ho Chi Minh City delegation has proposed investing in modern infrastructure and information technology so that Vietnam's stock market can run continuously and safely, moving towards trading without a lunch break and round the clock, 24/7, VnExpress reported. He made the proposal on the morning of 28 October, as the National Assembly debated a bill amending several articles of the Securities Law.
Article 6 of the draft says the state will have policies to invest in modernising the market's IT infrastructure and to encourage, reward, develop and attract staff for the sector. Ngân backed the idea of policy support for infrastructure investment.
A record of outages
Ngân said that since the market opened in July 2000 it had suffered several system crashes that halted trading and hurt the confidence of domestic and foreign investors. The market now has more than 14 million accounts held by individuals and institutions.
Responding later in the session, Finance Minister Ngô Văn Tuấn said the market initially ran on a system funded by Thailand, which broke down at times as the market's size and conditions changed. It now uses software bought from South Korea, which runs relatively stably. Even so, he said, the country still needs to master the technology itself so it can repair and upgrade the system to match the market's scale and conditions.
Background: the regulator is reviewing trading hours
At a meeting in early October, leaders of the State Securities Commission (SSC) said they were studying changes to trading hours and methods. Options under review include trading through lunch, widening the daily price band and dropping some trading and periodic order-matching sessions.
The SSC has asked the stock exchanges to assess the impact, after which it will draw up phased options and announce them so market participants have time to prepare and adjust. It has not given a date for any change. According to VnExpress, the Ministry of Finance is also continuing to work with MSCI on the classification of Vietnam's market.
Debate over staffing
Ngân called for more attention to staff for state oversight, especially for operating, monitoring and inspecting trading orders. He said collusion and manipulation can occur on stock markets, so high-quality staff are needed to detect manipulative trades in time.
Deputy Bùi Xuân Hải, rector of Hải Phòng University, said the draft's provisions on incentives and recruitment for the securities sector remained vague, and that the bill does not define what the securities sector is. Extending special pay to everyone working at securities firms would be unreasonable, he argued, because those firms compete on equal terms and set their own employment policies.
Tuấn explained that the SSC once had a special mechanism for its civil servants because competition with securities companies for skilled staff was intense. In 2010-2012, 180 of the commission's 300 staff left to work for businesses. That mechanism later lapsed, and he asked deputies to back the incentives in the bill. He also said the aim is a transparent market meeting international standards that can supply 40% of the economy's capital.
What comes next
The National Assembly will consider and vote on the bill on 13 November 2026. If passed, the law will take effect on 1 March 2027. Whether lunchtime trading is introduced depends on the SSC's options and roadmap, for which no timetable has been set.