FWD Vietnam claimed 'No. 1 customer experience for four years' and the NCC fined it

FWD Vietnam Life Insurance, the Vietnamese arm of Hong Kong-based FWD Group, posted a series of superlative claims on its Facebook page: 'Number 1 brand for customer experience for four consecutive years in the life insurance industry in Vietnam', the insurer 'with the fewest exclusions on the market', '100% cashless payment with no paperwork', the 'first insurance company distributing through e-commerce channels', and the 'most diverse and widespread distribution network in Vietnam'.

The National Competition Commission (NCC), under Vietnam's Ministry of Industry and Trade, found these claims were inaccurate and misleading. In a decision signed by chairman Lê Triệu Dũng and reported on 4 February 2025, it fined FWD Vietnam VND 200 million (about US$7,975) for unfairly soliciting customers by providing misleading information, in breach of Point (a), Clause 5, Article 45 of the Law on Competition.

The company was also ordered to publicly correct the misleading information on its Facebook page. The fine sat at the minimum of the VND 200–400 million range — a measure of the watchdog treating the breach as a compliance failure rather than aggravated misconduct, but a public finding all the same in an industry built on trust.