Commercial banks have recently sent a document to the State Bank of Vietnam, asking for ATM fee collection although their plan previously faced strong opposition from clients.
The expected fee level is VND 1,000 per transaction. The time of application would be set up at a later date, depending on the approval by the State Bank of Vietnam.
Le Dinh Song, representative from the Vietnam Card Association, said that the association has reported to the State Bank of Vietnam the plan of collecting ATM fees. The proposed fee level remains unchanged at VND1,000 per transaction (cash withdrawal or money transfer at ATMs).
Some lenders said they plan to begin collecting fees in Dec, while others said they would start the plan the next year.
Prior to that, the card association had to delay the plan on collecting ATM fees commencing July 1, 2008, as the fee collection plan faced strong opposition from the public.
Commercial banks, however, have been insisting on collecting ATM fees. Vietnam now has some 10 million card holders and some 10,000 ATMs. An ATM, which costs several hundred million VND or one billion VND, can run for five years only which then need to be upgraded.
Besides, commercial banks have to pay some VND200 million for each ATM every year for hiring the places for ATM, maintenance and security fee. If counting on the card issuance fee, ATM system management and run, banks have to spend VND 5,000-6,000 per transaction with ATMs.
Banks also have to maintain big volumes of cash at ATMs in order to serve clients’ cash withdrawal, from several hundreds millions VND to one billion VND at each ATM. This means that some VND10 trillion lies idle at ATMs each day which cannot be used by banks.
Vietnamese banks have so far issued more than 10 million ATM cards and installed about 4,500 ATMs and over 15,000 point of sales (POS) terminals. The country, thus, has modest 45 ATMs for every one million inhabitants, or one ATM per 22,000 customers. (Pioneer, Youth)
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