The Government has just issued Decree 80/2019/ND-CP amending some articles of the government's Decree no. 73/2016/ND-CP dated July 01, 2016, on details of the implementation of the Law on Insurance Business and the Law on Amendments of the Law on insurance business (“Decree 80/2019”), which focuses on guidance on Insurance Ancillary Services (“IAS”) issued under Law No. 42/2019/QH14. 

Accordingly, Decree 80/2019 focuses on two main groups of regulations:

(i) determining eligible revenue and expenses related to the provision or usage of an IAS in the insurance business; 

(ii) prescribing qualifications, certificates, and standards for individuals directly implementing insurance ancillary activities in the IAS provider.

In terms of eligibility, any individual directly providing insurance consulting services must meet one of the following conditions on relevant diplomas/certificates:

Decree 80/2019 also sets standards for:

• - Organizations providing IAS: they shall develop, deploy, and supervise the implementation of the standard of IAS provision.
• - Insurance enterprises, foreign branches, and insurance brokerage enterprises using IAS: they shall develop, deploy, and supervise the implementation of criteria for selection and usage of IAS. 

Another important point of the Decree is the detailed provision on standards applied for any foreign organization provides cross-border IAS in Vietnam to insurers, foreign branches, and insurance brokers, specifically including:

• - Be allowed to provide cross-border IAS following the laws of the country or territory where the organization is headquartered. 
• - Having been legally operating for at least 10 years preceding plan to provide cross-border insurance ancillary services in Vietnam;
• - Not violate the law on the provision of IAS of the country where the organization is headquartered for 03 years preceding the year of providing cross-border IAS in Vietnam.
• - Making profit for the three consecutive fiscal years preceding the year of providing cross-border IAS in Vietnam.

The Decree 80/2019 entered into effect from November 1^st, 2019.