ROLES OF SUPERVISORY AGENCIES TO THE EFFECTIVE DEVELOPMENT OF STOCK MARKET Peoples Teacher, Associate Professor, Doctor To Ngoc Hung

Today, the instability issues in the financial market are becoming severe as the capacity of internal risk management in financial institutions are weak and financial market supervisory system is still not synchronous, tightened which leads to many holes in supervisory activities. Therefore, raising the effectiveness of supervision for financial supervisory system will play an important role in ensuring stability for entire financial system, including the securities field. As for Vietnam, after more than 10-year-development based on the objectives of Development Strategy for Vietnam stock market to 2010 and Capital market development strategy to 2010 and vision to 2020, the operation of stock market has obtained some positive results in terms of legal framework, institutional policies, market scale and goods, securities listing and transaction, investor base system, system of business organizations, securities services, market organization, and market management and supervision operations. Management and supervision operations of stock market emphasize on protecting the interests of investors. The stock market management policy has the objective to enhance openness, transparency and gradually adopt the good corporate governance practices, international accounting and auditing standards and recommendations of International Organization of Stock Commission (IOSCO). However, besides the achievements, the fact also shows the gaps in management of the stock market, particularly in supervision and inspection activities. Accordingly, the responsibilities for stock marker supervision and inspection activities are not only of the State Securities Commission but also involve the supervision of financial institutions in the financial safety network (National Financial Supervisory Commission, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), Agency of Insurance Administration and Management (AIAM) and Deposit Insurance of Vietnam (DIV). The reason is that stock market has a strong communication with other markets which are under the professional management of monitoring organization in the financial safety network. Those communications combines with the gaps in the supervisory activities of the monitoring organization has put Vietnam's stock market in the open position with systemic risk. Questioned by these problems, all of my research will focus on assessing the role of watchdogs for effective development of Vietnam stock market performance.

1. The role of supervisory offices to Vietnam stock market management.

In fact, maintenance function for a stable financial system, including stock

market is responsible of five agencies of the financial safety network: SBV, Securities Commission, Agency of Insurance Administration and Management, National Financial Supervisory Commission and Deposit Insurance of Vietnam.. The functions of organizations directly involved in financial safety network in Vietnam can be listed as follows: - Agency for Banking Supervision under the State Bank of Vietnam, established under decision No. 83/2009/QD-TTG dated 27/05/2009 of the Prime Minister has responsibility for administrative inspection, special inspection and special supervision of banking aspects within jurisdiction of SBV; advise and assist the Governor for state management of credit institutions, small-scale financial institutions small-scale, banking operations of other organizations, anti-money laundering implementation as prescribed by law. " - The State Securities Commission is the organization which directly-monitors and inspects activities of securities markets and securities firms. - Agency of Insurance Administration and Management has responsibilities to assist the Minister of Finance to state administration of insurance business in the whole country, directly manages, inspects and supervises operation of insurance business, insurance brokerage companies operating in Vietnam; inspect and supervise activities of representative offices of foreign insurance enterprises and foreign insurance brokerage enterprises in Vietnam regulated by laws. - Deposit Insurance of Vietnam was established for protecting interests of depositors, enhancing public confidence, contributing to stability and development of the finance - banking system. In principle, Deposit Insurance of Vietnam is an independent organization and plays important role in the implementation of the functions, tasks and supervision of banking operations and credit institutions, activities coordination, information exchange and sharing responsibility for risk management, monitoring implementation with State Management Agencies such ahs Ministry of Finance, SBV to ensure safety and development of financial monetary system money. - National Financial Supervisory Commission (NFSC) was established with the advisory function to the Prime Minister in coordinating surveillance of national financial markets, specialized supervision on three domains of banking, securities and insurance; specifically, monitoring the observance of international rules and standards on monitoring activities of specialized supervision and inspection agencies; monitoring licensing conditions of credit institutions, non-bank credit organizations operating in these three areas. In addition, the Commission is responsible for proposing the Government to promulgate regulations on coordination of national financial market supervisory activities and coordinating with relevant Ministries and Agencies to submit to the Minister on strategic orientation for financial markets ... and propose to special supervision and inspection body and competent authorities to

handle violations of entities that violate banking, securities and insurance conditions. Simultaneously, the Commission conducts an analysis, forecasting, warning safety level of financial and banking system and risks for national financial markets; builds up database, synthesises, and processes and reports information about national financial market to the Prime Minister. 2. Actual situation of supervisory offices stock market monitoring activities. With current model, three outstanding issues in the supervision and inspection activities related to the assurance of stock market can be illustrated as follows: (1) State Securities Commission is the direct supervision body of stock market but still shows some shortcomings in implementing its supervisory power - Stock market monitoring operations are conducted by SSC based on the provisions scattered in the state management regulations on securities and stock market. It can be summarized specifically as follows: - Ministry of Finance guides SSC in the implementation of stock market strategy, planning and development policy as well as policies and regimes for securities and securities market management and supervision activities; - SSC manages and supervises the operation of Stock Exchange, Stock Exchange Centre, Securities Depository Centre and supporting organizations :or temporarily suspends trading activities, depository activities of Securities Exchanges, Stock Exchange Centre, Securities Depository Center in case of signs affecting rights and lawful interests of investors; inspect, supervise and administrative fine, settle complaints, denunciations securities and securities market operations. Specifying this regulation, Prime Minister issued Decision No. 112/2009/QDTTg date 11th September 2009 clearly stated that SSC is the body under Ministry of Finance, performs advisory and assisting functions to Minister of Finance in state management on securities and stock market; directly manage and supervise securities and stock market activities; manage services in the securities and stock market fields in accordance with the law Currently, the organization involved directly to the implementation market supervision is Market Supervision Department under the Decision No. 389/QD-BTC on 23th February 2010 by Minister of Finance. Accordingly, Market Supervision Department has the following powers and responsibilities: (1) Propose all legal documents on securities transactions supervision to the President SSC to submit to Minister of Finance; ( 2) Submit to Present of SSC all professional guidance documents, regulations, standards and business processes related to securities transactions supervision to get approval, (3) Lead and coordinate with other policy making organization to build up policies, solutions, schemes and plans related to supervisory operations of securities transactions, develop monitoring system for securities transactions; implement schemes and plans after approval;(4) Supervise and inspect the observance of laws and provisions on securities and securities market of

Stock Exchange and Securities Depository Center, (5) Coordinate with Stock Exchange, Securities Depository Center to supervise changes transactions daily and periodically; analysis, evaluate abnormal transactions; detect, synthesis and report to the President of SSC to take timely treatment, (6) coordinate with related agencies to monitor and examine public companies, listed companies, securities companies, fund management companies, securities investment companies , depository members, organizations and individuals who are able to or related control or corner market, trading spiers, (7) Act as guiding agency for SSC units to carry out supervision to market, institutions and individuals related to stock market. At Point b,c Clause 1 Article 8 Securities Law 2006 In fact, beside Market supervision Agency, securities supervision activities are also conducted by three functional units that are Securities Business Department, Management Department of Fund Managing Companies and Securities Issuance Management Department. With the establishment of such stock market monitoring mechanism, the supervision of SSC focuses on key issues including: (1) monitoring the observance of market intermediaries; issuance and listing organizations, (2) monitoring observance Stock Exchange, Stock Trading Center, (3) monitoring transactions on the market to detect market abuses; (4) inspecting to perform enforcement functions, (5) strongly contribute to ensuring openness and transparency of the market. For inspection securities inspection operations, the current laws on securities focus on three important issues that are inspection objectives, inspection scope and inspection form: First, inspection objects include: Organizations offering securities to the public; Public companies; Organizations listing securities; Stock Exchange, Securities Trading Center; Securities Depository Center , depository members; Securities companies, fund management companies, securities investment company, custodian bank, branch and representative offices of a securities company, the foreign fund management companies in Vietnam; The practice of securities; Organizations and individuals invest and operate in stock market; Other organizations and individuals involved in securities activities and stock market. Secondly, inspection scope includes: Securities offering activities to the public;

Securities listing operations Securities transacting activities Securities trading, securities investment, services related to securities services and stock markets; Information promulgating activities; Other activities related to securities and stock market. Thirdly, inspection forms include: Inspection program or plan approved by the President of SSC Sudden inspection is conducted when detecting organizations and individuals investing and operating in the market show signals violating Law on securities and stock market; required by resolution of complaints and denunciations or assigned by President of SSC. Those contents above have been specified in Decision No. 398/QD-BTC dated rd 23 February 2010 by Minister of Finance on 12 functions of securities inspection activities. In fact, SSC inspection has hosted and coordinated with other SSC units to conduct more inspections to detect violation signs, insider trading, market manipulation ... In 2008, SSC inspection and specialty Departments of SSC has sanctioned 124 cases of violations of securities laws with total fines of 3.765 billion. These violations include: Violation of regulations on public companies, offering securities to public, reporting mechanism and information disclosure of public companies and listed companies; false transactions; market manipulation; making securities transactions without reporting of shareholders listed companies; Violation of regulations on securities trading operations of securities companies; Violation of reporting regime and information disclosure of Securities companies. In 2009, number of securities companies fined due to violations of regulations on transactions is 74, in which the inspection used suspension form with 43 cases. Status of recidivism and violations on stock market shows that supervision and enforcement operation is not strong and deterrent enough to prevent and avoid violations. Other fact is the sanctions for administrative violations on securities is so low that investors are willing to break, ready to pay the fine in exchange for greater benefits from market violations and abuses. (Decree No. 36/2007/ND-CP by the Government on sanctioning administrative violations on securities and stock market was issued on 8th March 2007, but sanctions are just penalties, the maximum fine for violations of securities sector is only 70 million. Even Ordinance amending and supplementing the 2002 - Ordinance on handling administrative violations, in effect from 1st August 2008 which has increased fines for violations on securities legislation to a maximum of 500 million does not guarantee to handle violations for ensuring conformity with the nature and extent of violations (penalty of 500 million is still considered too low compared to many violations). Besides, the application of additional sanctions such as revoking illegal income is encountered some difficulties because no specific instructions on

formula illicit income from violation activities. Meanwhile, insider trading and manipulations may bring offenders billions. Obviously, the supervision and detection violations are just a condition to ensure market safety. If sanctions for violations are not effective, they can disable supervision function. On the other hand competence of securities watchdogs is still limited, low independence and adequate criteria for financial supervision operations have been not developed yet. These problems have created difficulties for implementing effectively observance supervision of SSC with the stock market in general and securities firms in particular. Besides observance supervisory activities related to the specific problems of entities operating in the securities market, SSC units also perform risk monitoring through periodic reports (example summary report on financial market of Analysis & Market Forecast Office under the Center for Scientific Research and Training SSC ...). This suggests that the Commission pays attention to safety supervision at macro level in relation to the security of stock market. This will be the basis for SSC sending out early warnings for negative fluctuations on the stock market. In addition, coordination mechanisms of monitoring activities between SSC units are not close and overlapping as well as difficult to define responsibilities of relevant parties. However, it is clear that all SSC relevant units related to market surveillance operations have not developed an effective method of identifying and handling the relationship between macro risks and risks on securities markets. In fact, during period from 2009 to now, the world complicated economic - politic situation as well as the difficulties of the Vietnam economy has affected Vietnam stock market. However, those fluctuations clearly reveal weaknesses in macro-level supervision of Vietnam financial inspection supervision in general as well as of stock market inspection supervision in particular. Specifically, inspectors were unable to predict the systemic risks from relations of credit market, real estate market and stock market and the negative impacts of these interconnections. (2)Members of financial safety network do not really have effective methods in participation in market management and supervisory activities. In principle, members of financial safety network are responsible for developing a stable market. If not mention SSC, 4 remaining members of financial safety network also shows "defects" in basic safety supervision at macro-level and monitoring elements affecting to market within its special surveillance function. Firstly, members of financial safety network all are responsible for supervising the macro security through macroeconomic analysis and sending out the warning to the market. However, during the period from 2008 to present, all macro-economic analysis as well as early warning is really valuable market development. Most of analysis report and alerts are done only when fluctuations have negative effects. Secondly, members of financial safety network really do not effectively monitor

the impacts from objects within its special supervision. Specifically, up to now, the supervision of capital flows from commercial banks to the stock market and vice versa as well as the capital flows between real estate market, gold market and the stock market is ineffective. This is illustrated by many supervisory institutions has difficulty in publishing supervision and evaluation results. In many cases, agencies in financial safety network sending out opposite evaluation of the market which leads to unnecessary fluctuations of foreign exchange market, gold market and stock market... (3)Many inadequacies appeared in coordinating supervision operation to maintenance the stability of financial market in general and of the stock market in particular. In fact, coordinating responsibilities in supervision activities to ensure the safety of financial markets in general and in particular stock market are of National Financial Supervisory Commission. However, the role of National Financial Supervisory Commission in coordinating operations of supervisory agencies is vague because it is organized in the form of consulting agency with no policy making functions and do not really have supervision power as well as violation handling. This leads to four consequences in supervisory operations of Vietnam financial safety networks related to stock market development as follows: Firstly, organizations in Vietnam financial safety network have face many issues relating to development trend of financial conglomerates in recent years. Many studies have shown evidences of ineffective coordination between inspecting supervisory organizations which have led to failure in preventing financial corporations abusing legal gaps and holes in surveillance regulation to avoid being supervised during they operate. Especially when the finance corporation simultaneously participated in multiple markets: credit market, stock market, insurance market, gold market... Secondly, supervisory organizations in the network have difficulty in handling requirements for monitoring new financial products in integrated trend. This trend is a mix of financial products to launch new financial products (including the mix of deposit products of bank with securities investment products made by Financial Groups) which causes the determination of Supervisors responsibilities becoming more complex. Thirdly, there appeared duplication of supervision activities which are the same or similar between supervisory authorities or "leave empty" supervision areas which will create a risk of wasting resources or risk system. Many financial corporations engaged in securities or securities companies stated that they have to "welcome" too many inspection teams for one monitor operational aspect. Obviously, the coordination in supervisory activities of organizations in financial safety network shows too many problems and is considered almost nonexistent. As identified by ADB experts in the project TA 7087 VIE - Support for

Capital Market Development, "the relationships between inspection agencies are very lax." Moreover, while legal framework on this issue is not fully clear, agencies in financial safety network is not active in signing agreements on coordinating and bilateral information exchange with other supervisory authorities. (4) The limitation in sharing mechanisms on supervision information Information sharing and coordination among agencies in market supervision shows many limitations. Information on inspection and supervision normally is kept confidential and used for the purpose of each agency. This limits supervision ability of entire system. In recent three years, National Financial Supervisory Commission initially has performed the coordination in information exchange to supervise all financial market activities. However, there is still the situation of financial corporations and securities operations as securities firms must comply with various reporting requirements for different member organizations financial safety network. In terms of supervisory operations for financial conglomerates, supervisory systems of securities and insurance firms aare separate SBV inspection activities. Accordingly, the supervisory system of securities and insurance companies and insurance will report results to Ministry of Finance. Therefore, ineffective cooperation in sharing information will lead to two problems: overlapping controlling risks from this field to other fields and supervising consolidated risks of financial conglomerates. (5) Incomplete legal systems as a basis for coordination between member organizations of financial safety network. At first it can be seen that the current Vietnam legal system does not mention the concept of financial security network. Most legislative documents also do not clearly identify coordination mechanism of inspection, supervision and information sharing between organizations in financial safety network. Moreover, the laws of Vietnam do not state clearly responsibilities of each organization in the financial safety network when crisis appears, especially in bank failure. (Decree 05/2010/ND-CP stipulating the bankruptcy application for credit institutions does not specify the coordination among members of secure network). Secondly, law system on supervision is incomplete and inconsistent (there is a separation between Law on the State Bank, Law on Credit Institution, Law on Securities and Law on Insurance). All these laws are referred to safety supervision issue, consumer protection, and risk management and information disclosure of lowlevel organizations. Because of being built apart from another, the rules relating to above subjects may overlap. Monitored by a specialized law does not allow supervisory organizations becoming independence and having authority as well as transparency in detecting and handling of violations affecting system safety when construction policy and implementation of supervisory activities functions are identified.

Legal framework also vacated a number of subjects related to financial products supervision of financial products, consumer protection, integrated supervision, analysis, forecasting and early warning. The weakness stems primarily from the absence of appropriate supervision model. Since implementing supervision system model by the functions, laws and legal norms are oriented according to specialized supervision. In fact, there appear some regulations on supervision cooperation mechanism but effect of these provisions is not high. This will lead to bad consequences that are to reduce legal basis for transparency and accuracy of information and lead to inefficiencies in stock market operation. 3. Some solutions to enhance the watchdogs roles for Vietnam stock market development. Dealing with limitations of inspection and supervision operations of monitoring organizations in the securities field as mentioned, we need to develop a uniform solution system including short-term and strategic solutions to ensure safe and sustainable development of Vietnam stock market. 3.1. Short-term solutions 3.1.1. For State Securities Commission - Complete legal system on securities and stock market. Laws should be regulated more closely in the field of inspection and control to ensure that businesses offering securities in accordance with capital increasing purposes. In fact some businesses take advantage of the market rally to release large amounts of securities, using funds obtained in finance investment while SSC has not had a powerful tools permitted by law to prevent or regulate this action. Law allows securities firms to carry out securities short sellings in accordance with Ministry of Finance, but up to now, there have been no specific guidelines on these activities. - Being aggressive and tougher in handling violations related to securities and securities market, increasing penalties of violations. - Improve the market surveillance criteria system; ensure comprehensive supervision from transactions supervision, securities issuance monitoring, securities companies, investment funds and fund management companies. For each object of surveillance, criteria should be developed scientifically to ensure that after the assessment completion early warning of risks can be sending out. For example, when developing evaluation criteria for the safety of Securities Companies, these criteria should include financial and non financial targets associated with the system of operating norms, minimum safety ratios of each criterion as well as for the entire indicators system. These will help inspectors quantify risk and timely report expected losses when they find out that operation of securities companies does not guarantee

predetermined safety threshold (this is similar to provisions of handling commercial banks which does not guarantee a minimum capital adequacy or ensure safety limits prescribed by banking regulations). - Improve the independence of supervisory authorities in task implementation, raise SSC competence. Accordingly, SSC has the right to question, investigate, search evidence, and seizure documents of those who are suspected of market abuse. Laws need to increase time limit for completion of inspection checks, especially in complicated cases involving many subjects which require long-term inspection. - Improve the capacity of inspectors in the field of securities inspection and supervision in which, at first is to increase the number of securities inspectors. Specifically, Ministry of Finance Ministry need to study and propose Prime Minister appropriate financial mechanisms for SSC for approval, then attract and encourage qualified staff and professionals working in securities market management and supervision agencies. Simultaneously, there needs to have an appropriate mechanism to improve staff qualifications. - SSC should develop a standard supervision system based on modern information technology. Accordingly, all past transactions on the market can be recovered, and on this basis, experts can analyze and find out signals of irregular price trading, or insider trading ... in the market. 3.1.2. For elements of securities market - Specifically, for securities companies, SSC requires strict reporting regime, information disclosure; observance with current regulations on organization and operation of securities companies, management of securities business practice; strict implementation of regulations on securities trading, securities settlement. - Check the entire customers transaction record to ensure it kept fully and accurately. Inform current status of accounts (opening balance, transactions in the period, closing balance of cash and securities accounts) for customers as prescribed. Strengthen governance, risk management, internal control and ensure safe operation under current regulations. As for listed companies, SSC requires companies to strictly observe the information disclosure regime on securities market as stipulated in Circular 09/2010/TT-BTC dated 15th January2010. Particularly, SSC should make formal request to listed companies to set up unit for receiving, processing, answering questions, petitions, complaints by shareholders - For two stock exchanges, strengthen transaction supervision operation, member monitoring, information disclosure supervision and rumors monitoring. Actively and promptly report rumors and activities with violation signals to SSC for consideration and handling. - For Depository Center, strengthen the supervision in securities registration,

depository, clearing and settlement activities depository members, report provisions violations to SSC for review and handling. 3.2. The long-term solution First, Construct Law on financial inspection and supervision, clearly state which objects under the supervisions of which supervisory organizations, , avoid duplication in monitoring activities as an object supervised by several supervisors and therefore subject too many laws which leads to misunderstanding and incorrect implementation. . Simultaneously, the Law clearly defines responsibilities and powers of supervisory bodies, information exchange mechanisms and coordination among agencies and responsibilities to handle inspected violations of each unit, avoid pushing responsibility to each other. Second: Roles and responsibilities of each specialized supervision agency should be clearly concretized, clarified (on monitoring objects, competence on violation handling and management...), to avoid overlapping iteration and blame each other. Concurrently, members of financial safety network (National Financial Supervisory Commission, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), Agency of Insurance Administration and Management (AIAM) and Deposit Insurance of Vietnam (DIV)) should exchange and share information to ensure harmonious action, warning, detection and timely violation handling objects inspected and supervised and especially support each other to increase the effectiveness of macro safety supervision and systemic risk monitoring. Thirdly, gradually improve National Financial Supervisory Commission by: (i) Increased powers for National Financial Supervisory Commission , accordingly National Financial Supervisory Commission have the power to draft and issue laws, rules and regulations for monitoring operations and violation handling of objects monitored in the field of banking, securities and insurance; have rights to license and dissolute of financial institutions subject to supervision on all three domains, (ii) Recruit more highly qualified staff who are have deep knowledge about financial and monetary sector, about laws and regulations, experienced in in operating supervision in banking, securities, insurance to National Financial Supervisory Commission. These officers can be immediately appointed appropriate position or can participate in training courses for a gradual supplementation; (iii) Investment in technological innovations served for information collection, market changes monitoring and supervised objects, gradually build early warning systems, remote warnings , detection and prevention of risks in financial markets, share information with specialized supervision agencies specialized supervision, and coordination in the implementation of market inspection and supervision implementation; (iv) build a separate system of

information resources for inspection and supervision operations, information transferred to concerned departments to recognize, evaluate and promptly handle problems. (v) Improving indicators system and appropriate monitoring methods consistent with international standards and practice as a basis to assess observance and risk supervision of financial system, micro supervisory indicators based on CAMELS evaluation model, macro supervisory indicators based on macroeconomic indicators such as economic growth, inflation, exchange rates, balance of payments... At first, National Financial Supervisory Commission should review the financial system; Inspect and assess products of financial service on the market to identify risks; Evaluate the performance on loan classification and adequate provisioning for risk reserves of credit institutions (operations account for over 50% of total assets) and check investments on valuable papers, analyze interested transactions between banks and securities firm, especially securities companies and banks have had o contributed capital relations; (vi) Government should provide adequate resources and conditions for the Commission to implement its responsibilities. Fourth: formulate unified and centered model of supervisors under the administration of National Financial Supervisory Commission. National Financial Supervisory Commission becomes an independent agency under the Government or Parliament, has authority to promulgate legal documents, regulations and handle violations related to inspection and supervision operations on all three domains of banking, securities and insurance. Closely Implement and coordinate to exchange information with SBV, Ministry of Finance, find out the solutions to removing difficulties in the supervision of financial system; establish early warning systems and prevent risks or impacts of domestic and foreign factors from financial markets. Financial Supervisory Commission performs the functions of supervising operations of specialized supervision agencies which require those agencies to regularly or suddenly report the implementation their work. In conclusion, to ensure effective supervision of securities markets, the roles of watchdog organizations should settle three major contents: (1) encourage the t market participants implement good corporate governance, (2) build up effective market discipline mechanism and (3) inspection and supervision system performs observance and risks supervision.

REFERENCES:

1. Duong Thi Phuong (2010), Operation effects of financial supervisory system in Vietnam, The summary record of Scientific Conference on the Effect of financial supervisory system in Vietnam, Finance Publisher. 2. Nguyen Son (2010), 10 years of Vietnam stock market and the orientation strategy period 2010 - 2020, Journal of Economics and Special forecasting for Vietnam socioeconomic overview, 2nd edition June 2010 3. Peter Hayward (2009), Project TA 7087 VIE: Support for Capital Market Development and Capacity Improvement Financial Sector: Structure of supervision, ADB Report