To: Postal enterprises

For the purpose of improving legal knowledge of postal enterprises, ensuring conformity of electronic contracts and signatures, the Ministry of Information and Communications hereby provides instructions for postal services as follow:

I. Relevant legislative documents

- The Law on Electronic transaction No. 51/2005/QH11 dated November 29, 2005;

- The Law on Postal services No. 49/2010/QH12 dated June 17, 2010;

- The Law on Accounting No. 88/2015/QH13 dated November 20, 2015;

- The Government's Decree No. 47/2011/ND-CP dated June 17, 2011 elaborating some contents of the Law on Postal services;

- The Government's Decree No. 52/2013/ND-CP dated May 16, 2013 on electronic commerce;

- The Government's Decree No. 174/2016/ND-CP dated December 30, 2016 elaborating some Articles of the Law on Accounting;

- Circular No. 47/2014/TT-BCT dated December 05, 2014 of the Ministry of Industry and Trade on management of e-commerce websites;

- Circular No. 59/2015/TT-BCT dated December 31, 2015 of the Ministry of Industry and Trade on management of e-commerce activities on mobile applications.

II. Use of electronic contracts and electronic signatures in postal services

1. Content of an electronic postal service contract

In the cases where the service provider has notified and registered for e-commerce activities in accordance with regulations of law on e-commerce (Article 25 and Chapter IV of Decree No. 52/2013/ND-CP ; Article 5 of Circular No. 47/2014/TT-BCT ; Article 3 and Article 4 of Circular No. 59/2015/TT-BCT) and the electronic contract contains adequate information specified in Article 9 of the Law on Postal services, it will have the same value as a physical contract for provision postal services defined by regulations of law on postal services.

2. The recipient’s signature on the bill of lading manager applications for mobile devices

The recipient’s signature on the bill of lading manager application is a method of electronic authentication agreed upon by the service provider and the client. In the present, the legality of this method is not ensured by any authentication service provider.

Therefore, in order to ensure the legality of the recipient’s signature, it is recommended that postal service providers should consider applying the electronic authentication methods specified in Chapter III of the Law on Electronic transaction No. 51/2005/QH11 and relevant legislative documents.

3. Electronic postal service contract retention period

The period of retention of electronic postal service contracts shall comply with the Law on Accounting No. 88/2015/QH13, the Government's Decree No. 174/2016/ND-CP (Article 8, Article 10 and Article 12) and relevant legislative documents.

4. Notifying use of electronic postal service contracts

Whenever an electronic postal service contract is used and there is a change compared to the application for the postal license or notification of postal activities, the postal service provider shall inform the issuer of the postal license or the confirmation of notification of postal activities (the Ministry of Information and Communications, Provincial Departments of Information and Communications) as prescribed in Article 10 of Decree No. 47/2011/ND-CP.

For your information and compliance./.