In 2021, Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy jumped at an offer by Vietnam’s Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank (SCB) to invest in a new savings product offering high interest rates. The former factory worker did not hesitate to move her entire savings of 800mn dong ($32,000) to the new scheme, believing that her money would be safe with the state-licensed bank.
But unbeknown to Thuy, her money was invested in bonds that Vietnamese authorities said were illegally channelling money to property tycoon Truong My Lan in what they said was the biggest fraud the country had ever seen.
“I believed totally in the assurances of the bank staff . . . now I have lost all faith in the domestic banking system,” said 61-year-old Thuy, adding that all her family’s savings had been lost. She has been participating in protests against SCB — rare in tightly controlled communist-run Vietnam — because “we have no other choice”.