The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) announced that it has cleaned up 154 million bank accounts and flagged nearly 300,000 customers for suspected fraud, blocking transactions worth a combined VND1.5 trillion ($56.9 million), according to report released by the Vietnam News Agency on October 6.

The bank’s Anti-Money Laundering Department, in cooperation with the Ministry of Public Security, scrubbed 154 million accounts and 36 million customer files from the national database on money laundering and terrorist financing. The National Credit Information Center (CIC) similarly cross-checked 57 million records, cleansing nearly 44.5 million customer files from its credit information database.

Director of the SBV’s Information Technology Department Le Hoang Chinh Quang was quoted by the news agency as saying that 57 banks and 39 intermediary institutions integrated biometric authentication into mobile banking platforms; and that more than 128.9 million personal accounts and 1.3 million corporate accounts were verified biometrically, or 100% of active digital banking users.

Over the past time, the central bank has identified some 600,000 accounts showing suspicious activity. Through collaboration with banks, authorities warned nearly 300,000 customers and blocked transactions totaling around VND1.5 trillion.

Deputy Director of the Anti-Money Laundering Department Nguyen Thi Minh Tho, as quoted by the news agency, said that the department is implementing the Government’s resolution on piloting crypto trading market, with four major missions of establishing anti-money laundering obligations for encrypted asset service providers; collecting, processing and transferring information about suspicious transactions; ensuring close coordination among the SBV, the Ministry of Finance, the State Securities Commission and the Ministry of Public Security; and fostering international cooperation to enhance anti-money laundering effectiveness.

The central bank is developing specific guidelines for financial institutions to provide related services while meeting legal requirements for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and financing of weapons of mass destruction proliferation, tailored to the characteristics of the encrypted asset market.