The IFC roadmap in Vietnam is unusually explicit for a project of this kind. Decree 323/2025/ND-CP sets out what must happen in 2025-2026, what begins from 2026, and what the Executive Council must report within five years. For institutions deciding when to commit, that timetable is the most useful planning document available.
Phase one of the IFC roadmap: 2025-2026
The People’s Committees of Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang carry four obligations in this window. Form the centre and bring it into operation, including allocating the resources and personnel its institutions require. Complete a number of priority infrastructure projects providing seamless connectivity. Build a modern financial ecosystem – promoting the exchanges and new trading platforms contemplated by Article 13 of Resolution 222/2025/QH15 and technology-applied financial services. And form the initial ecosystem of international-standard advisory and support services.
The fourth obligation is the one professional firms should read closely: the state is explicitly seeking advisers, administrators and service providers of international standard, not merely financial institutions.
Phase two: continuous mechanism development from 2026
From 2026 the centre’s institutions must lead, in coordination with ministries, the proposal and construction of further special and outstanding mechanisms on an appropriate schedule – designed to attract capital, technology, modern management methods, high-quality human resources, major international financial institutions and investors. In parallel they must complete a synchronised, transparent and unified legal framework and establish inspection, supervision and risk management arrangements protecting national financial safety.
This is the phase where founding members exert influence. An advisory council of respected domestic and international finance and legal experts advises the Executive Council on development, and the mechanisms proposed will reflect the businesses actually operating when they are drafted.
Phase three: the five-year review
Within five years of the decree taking effect, the Executive Council must lead a preliminary review of the centre’s operation and report to the Government. Where necessary, it may propose restructuring toward a more streamlined and unified model, provided this meets safety and efficiency conditions and does not interrupt operations at either location.
Investors should read that provision carefully. It signals that the two-location structure is deliberate but not permanently fixed, and that performance during the first five years determines what the centre becomes.
What the IFC roadmap means for your entry timing
Three windows exist. Enter during phase one and shape the rulebook while paying the lowest occupancy costs, accepting that the ecosystem is thin. Enter during phase two once mechanisms have been tested but before the framework hardens. Or wait for post-review clarity and pay for the certainty. Our membership guide covers the practical route, and the founding-member argument is set out in our international financial centre overview.
IFC roadmap FAQs
Is the timetable realistic?
The 2025-2026 formation phase is aggressive, though beginning in existing buildings – particularly in the Da Nang financial centre – makes early operation feasible. Large-scale infrastructure, especially the sea reclamation, runs on a longer horizon.
What could slow it?
The usual constraints: land delivery, the pace of implementing regulation, and whether service-provider depth arrives quickly enough to support licensed institutions.
How should institutions monitor progress?
Watch three markers – the first cohort of licences issued, the specialised court becoming operational, and the first mechanisms proposed under phase two. Framework texts and progress are published via the Ministry of Finance.
Reading the IFC roadmap against your own timetable
The centre’s timetable only matters relative to the institution’s own. A manager raising a fund in eighteen months faces a different calculation from a bank reviewing regional footprint over five years, and from a fintech whose product has no licensing home anywhere in Asia today.
A simple exercise clarifies it. Write down the date by which the business must be operational, the date by which the licence must therefore be granted, and the preparation time the application realistically needs. Work backwards, and the entry window becomes an arithmetic question rather than a strategic debate.
Institutions that do this typically discover the decision is more urgent than it felt, because the preparation phase – entity design, substance planning, banking, documentation – consumes months that were invisible in the original plan. The IFC roadmap sets the outer frame; the inner constraint is almost always the applicant’s own readiness.
This article is provided for general information only and does not constitute legal advice for any specific case. Regulations may change – please consult a qualified professional before acting. Should further analysis be required, please contact one of our lawyers below.
