“All individuals and organizations are banned from trading securities, vehicles, and land in cash” is the draft content on cash payments that will be submitted to the Government by the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) in 2013.
Mr. Bui Quang Tien, Director of Payment Department, SBV is under the preparation and finalisation of draft decree on cash payment. The latest submission date shall be June 30, 2013 so that the decree can be promulgated this year.
In addition to this Decree, in 2013, SBV also has a number of plans to speed up non-cash payment scheme. It is expected that Vietnam will have 250,000 POS (point of sale).
The draft decree of the Government of Vietnam for the cash payment has been put forward to gain the ideas of enterprises. The new point in this draft is the regulation on the disallowance of cash payment for the purchase of securities, houses, land and vehicles including cars, motorcycles, electric vehicles which are applied to all the individuals.
Neither organization is allowed to use cash for transaction of real estates, securities, aircraft, ships, cars (regardless of transaction value). Besides these transactions, cash is not allowed to be paid to individuals, organizations in the amount exceeding a certain limit.
There are currently over 51 millions of bank cards and over 14 thousands of ATMs across the country, let alone 94 thousands of devices to accept card payment. However, dozen millions of bank accounts are mainly used to withdraw cash rather than make payment via cards and bank facilities.
The unpopularity of spending via card is due to the fact that some businesses have not encouraged the use of card in payment. In many supermarkets and shopping centers, customers who use card for payment are not entitled to discounts and other sale-off programs. Therefore, prior to going for a shopping in the supermarkets, customers that have great shopping demand often withdraw cash instead of using card.
To accelerate non-cash payment, a representative of the State Bank emphasized the importance of relevant ministries and agencies’ participation as this is the issue of the whole society. For instance, the Ministry of Industry and Trade regulates that all the shopping centers, restaurants install POS. The Ministry of Finance should issue tax reduction policy to encourage the payment via card…. “Without the assistance and participation of the ministries, it would be very hard for SBV to take overall responsibility for installing POS and developing the whole network”, the representative stated.
PV
Vietnamese
