Vietnam is trying to turn digital assets and intellectual property into working capital for small businesses. The real test will be whether banks can price assets that move faster than their lending manuals.
Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance has put a practical question in front of the country’s banks: if a small company owns valuable code, patents, data, trademarks, or digital assets, why should it be treated as if it owns nothing useful for credit?
The proposal sits inside a draft revision of the Law on Support for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, and it would allow SMEs to use digital assets, virtual assets, intellectual property rights, future-formed assets, property rights and other intangible holdings as collateral for loans. That may sound technical, but for founders it is very concrete. It means a software company, a digital commerce business, or a startup with blockchain assets could have another way to borrow without pledging land or buildings.
According to Vietnam Investment Review, the Ministry of Finance wants credit institutions to broaden SME lending beyond real estate-backed collateral and consider business plans, credit ratings, market expansion strategies and cash flows. Crypto is the headline, but the deeper policy move is about making Vietnam’s credit system fit an economy where more business value now sits in software, customer relationships, brands and digital balance sheets.
Vietnam’s SME sector is large, but its access to bank credit remains narrow. The ministry estimates that SMEs and household businesses make up more than 98 percent of businesses in the country, yet they account for only around 19 to 20 percent of total outstanding credit. Vietnam News reported that outstanding SME loans had reached nearly VND3.8 quadrillion, or about $144.2 billion, by the end of April.
That gap explains why this proposal has landed at the right time. A young company may have strong revenue, a useful product and a loyal customer base, but still fail a bank’s traditional collateral test. If the lender wants land, factories or heavy equipment, many technology businesses simply do not qualify. Their most valuable assets are not sitting in a warehouse. They are in repositories, licensing agreements, data systems, registered IP and, in some cases, digital wallets.
Vietnam has already been moving in this direction on intellectual property. Its revised IP law, passed by the National Assembly on December 10, 2025 and scheduled to take effect in April 2026, allows IP rights to be valued, transferred, contributed as capital and used as collateral. The new SME proposal extends that logic into lending policy. It tells the market that intangible assets are not just legal rights or accounting footnotes. They can become part of how companies raise capital.
For startups, that changes the conversation with lenders and investors. A founder who can demonstrate verified ownership, real commercial value and credible cash flow may have more choices than giving up equity too early. That matters in an emerging market where venture capital can be uneven and bank lending has often favored businesses with property.
The risk is in the valuation
The difficult part is not writing digital assets into a draft law. The difficult part is making a bank comfortable enough to lend against them.
Crypto brings volatility into a system built around loan-to-value ratios, appraisals and repayment schedules. A token that looks valuable on Monday can lose a large share of its value before a credit committee meets again. If banks accept crypto collateral, they will need strict haircuts, custody standards, liquidation procedures and rules for what happens when prices fall below required thresholds. Without that, the policy could look bold on paper and move slowly in practice.
Intellectual property has a different problem. It does not trade on a 24-hour market, but it can be hard to value and hard to enforce. A patent may be useful only if a product reaches customers. A trademark may depend on brand strength. Software may require maintenance, technical documentation and clear ownership records. Banks will need valuation partners and better data before they can treat these assets with the same confidence as real estate.
This is why the draft’s wider push toward data and cash flow-based lending matters. If lenders can see revenue, tax records, payment behavior, salaries, insurance contributions and real operating cash flow, they do not have to judge a company only by the asset it pledges. That would bring Vietnam closer to the kind of modern SME credit market that technology founders actually need.
The crypto angle also fits Vietnam’s larger digital asset strategy. Chainalysis ranked Vietnam fourth in its 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index, behind India, the United States and Pakistan. Separate Chainalysis data cited by local media put Vietnam-linked crypto transaction value at more than $220 billion from July 2024 to June 2025. This is not a small user base waiting for policy to catch up. It is already an active market.
That creates a regional signal. Singapore has built its reputation around regulated financial infrastructure. Thailand has been active in digital asset licensing and oversight. Vietnam is not copying either model exactly, but it is clearly trying to bring digital assets into formal finance rather than leave them outside the banking system. If the proposal reaches the National Assembly in October 2026 as planned and takes effect from July 1, 2027, the country could give banks, startups and regulators a shared framework for assets that already exist in the economy.
The next thing to watch is not only whether lawmakers approve the draft. It is whether Vietnam gives lenders the tools to make it usable: valuation standards, custody rules, credit guarantees, data-sharing systems and clear treatment when collateral loses value. If those pieces arrive together, crypto and IP collateral could become more than a policy headline. It could become a real financing channel for the companies building Vietnam’s next stage of growth.
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