Vietnamese companies are vying to secure the country’s first virtual asset licences as the government moves to tighten oversight. Vietnam plans to launch a pilot programme for locally operated digital asset exchanges as early as this month, Reuters reported. A Finance Ministry document seen by Reuters lists five firms that passed initial eligibility screening, including affiliates of Techcombank, VPBank and LPBank, VIX Securities and Sun Group. The ministry is also drafting rules to ban Vietnamese from trading on offshore virtual asset platforms.