Tighten financial security, reorient securities company operating strategy

At the end of October, the Ministry of Finance announced amendments to the financial safety ratio requirements for securities companies. Circular No. 102/2025/TT-BTC amending financial safety regulations for securities trading organizations will take effect from December 15, 2025.

While the minimum capital adequacy ratio (Capital to Risk-Weighted Assets Ratio) of 180% remains the same, the new regulatory framework has introduced significantly higher risk weights for key asset classes — including corporate bonds, receivables and equity. The value of insolvent investments must be deducted from the securities firm’s available capital.

VIS Rating believes that these changes have a positive impact on the creditworthiness of the entire industry. The revised regulations are designed to direct growth towards safer business activities, limit areas with high potential risks and reduce concentration risks. This emphasizes the importance of prudent business growth and strict risk management, especially in the context of optimistic investor sentiment and rapid industry growth.

This credit rating unit said that from 2020 to the first 9 months of 2025, the total assets of the 30 largest securities companies in the industry had a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 34%. Many companies - often associated with private banks - have been active in providing capital to large enterprises, especially in the real estate and renewable energy sectors, through direct lending, bond investments and margin lending. However, recent legal problems and delayed bond payments by some large enterprises have increased credit risks.

Banks’ increasing reliance on affiliated securities firms for profit growth will also increase systemic risk. The push into securities services increases banks’ credit exposure to large corporates, increasing their vulnerability and credit risk associated with large clients. Over the past three years, the market share of securities firms affiliated with private banks has increased significantly, thanks to large capital increases.

Most companies have Financial Safety Ratio exceeding the minimum of 180% at 6M 2025

Although financial safety regulations are being tightened, VIS Rating still believes that the short-term impact on business growth for many securities companies will not be large. Most securities companies maintain financial safety ratios much higher than the 180% threshold.

Companies focusing on margin lending (e.g. MBS) and highly liquid stock trading such as SHS are still well-positioned, with financial safety ratios ranging from 550% to 650% in 6M 2025. Meanwhile, companies holding a lot of corporate bonds such as VNDirect and TPS are actively raising capital to improve their ability to absorb losses and support growth momentum.

Therefore, this credit rating unit expects the revised regulations to guide securities companies to focus on core activities such as margin lending, trading in bonds and other valuable papers, while limiting non-core business activities such as receivables from Business Cooperation Contracts (BCC).

Some companies have large amounts of BCC receivables, often associated with lending to businesses with weak cash flows, high leverage and a history of late bond payments - posing a high risk of credit losses.

At the same time, the regulation will also help reduce concentration risk by increasing the risk weight for capital contributions to limited liability companies by up to 30% when the total investment in an organization exceeds 25% of the equity of the securities company. This has expanded the scope compared to before, which only applied to equity and bond investments.

In addition, the new regulation also includes credit ratings from international or domestic credit rating organizations as the basis for determining the risk coefficient for corporate bond investments. This is consistent with the Securities Law 2024, which requires credit ratings for bond issuance and creates more transparency in risk differentiation, especially for companies specializing in bond investment and distribution, VIS Rating commented.

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