KIS Vietnam kept letting clients overtrade — its fines never topped VND250 million

On 4 September 2025 the inspection arm of Vietnam's State Securities Commission fined CTCP Chứng khoán KIS Việt Nam VND137.5 million for letting customers run margin trades beyond the purchasing power actually in their accounts — violations sampled between 1 January 2024 and 11 August 2025. It was not the first time: a 9 November 2023 decision fined the firm the same VND137.5 million for letting customers place buy orders without sufficient cash, in a sample window from August 2021 to April 2022.

The middle entry is the heaviest. In October 2022 the SSC fined KIS VND250 million (decision 758/QĐ-XPHC) for failing to ensure the offering dossiers it advised were accurate and complete — three private bond issues of Cung điện Mùa đông, a Tân Hoàng Minh subsidiary, in November 2021 and March 2022, whose plans lacked funding sources and payment arrangements. Tân Hoàng Minh's nine fraudulent lots cost investors more than VND8,800 billion; the advisory fine was the only sanction that reached the brokerage which vetted the files.

Under Decree 156/2020 each of these violations carries a fixed tier — VND50, 137.5 or 250 million — regardless of how much client money was at risk. KIS's biggest 2025 bill actually came from the tax office: false declarations drew VND491 million in recovered tax, VND458 million in late-payment charges and a VND301 million deduction adjustment, VND1.25 billion in all. In the same week peers BIS Securities and ASAM Securities were fined VND480 million and VND320 million, a sweep of nearly VND1 billion across three brokers.

Fines of VND137.5-250 million each; even certifying dossiers for Tân Hoàng Minh's VND8,800 billion bond fraud cost KIS just VND250 million.

The same control failed twice, four years apart: clients could bid without money in their accounts, first in cash trading, then in margin accounts.

Advisory due diligence failed where the fees were thickest: the Cung điện Mùa đông dossiers lacked funding plans and payment arrangements, yet carried the KIS name.

Decree 156/2020 fixes fine tiers per violation, so repeat misconduct costs a predictable VND137.5 million — cheaper than the compliance headcount that would prevent it.

No licence condition followed any of the fines, so nothing escalated as the pattern repeated.

When the decree caps conduct fines at VND250 million, penalties become pricing: over-lending client money is a service line, and vetting a fraudulent bond file costs less than one fee.

KIS paid the fines and kept its licences; no suspension or supervisory action followed. The September 2025 round also caught BIS Securities — VND480 million, including misstated financial-safety ratios for four months of 2024 and an undisclosed certificate-of-deposit purchase equal to 55.3% of its assets — and ASAM Securities at VND320 million. Vietnam's broker fine schedule was left unchanged, and the firm's largest 2025 penalty remained the taxman's VND1.25 billion recovery.