Open-end funds in Viet Nam are looking forward to better performances in 2020 as more investors seek assistance from funds’ products and services.

The number of investors opening new accounts at open-end funds in Viet Nam was 35,000 at the end of September, according to the Vietnam Securities Depository (VSD).

Meanwhile, only 900 accounts were closed.

The total number of trading accounts at open-end funds in Viet Nam as of September 30, 2019 was 110,000 – which was 12 times the figure recorded four years ago.

The total number of active funds in Viet Nam was 28. In 2019, six new funds were set up.

Most investors are domestic individuals. More than 720 accounts belong to foreign individual investors. In addition, nearly 100 foreign institutional investors and more than 220 domestic institutional investors have created accounts.

According to Nguyen Thi Thu Hang, head of VSD’s fund service and new product division, the strong increase in the number of fund accounts prove investors are becoming more interested in open-end funds’ products and services.

VSD chief executive officer Duong Van Thanh said that the agency’s fund services have helped boost the operation of investment funds in Viet Nam’s equity market.

A total of 33 funds are working with VSD, including 28 open-end funds, two exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and three closed-end funds. The total net asset value (NAV) of open-end funds grew year-on-year to more than VND21 trillion (US$904.7 million) in 2019.

VSD expects to improve its co-operation with investment funds to boost the market’s performance in 2020-25, Thanh said.

The growth of the number of fund-activated accounts is the evidence market members (investment funds and securities firms), the State Securities Commission (SSC), VSD and investors have made best efforts to strengthen the creditability for investment funds, Nguyen Hai Nam, head of SSC’s fund managers and securities investment funds management department, said.

There will be more opportunities for the investment fund sector to grow as the amended Law on Securities is expected to be approved by the National Assembly in November, meeting international standards and practices, he said.

According to VNDirect Securities Corporation’s IPA Asset Management CEO Nguyen Ho Nga, investors are turning from purchasing stocks to buying fund certificates and attached services, which are getting diversified, better-quality and quickly-resolved.

The launch of voluntary pension fund in 2020 is also expected to boost the Vietnamese fund sector.

VSD chairman Nguyen Son said that Viet Nam’s investment fund sector is much younger than other economies’ but it has made strong growth in recent years.

He expected fund management firms, securities companies and market regulators, with the approval of the amended securities law, will make the Vietnamese equity market more professional in the near future. — VNS

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