To date, 34 banks have built service tariffs on domestic debit cards and reported to the central bank. Two banks had lower rates than recommended rates, 10 banks charged VND1,000 per transaction, and remainders did not plan to collect fees.
On February 27, the Vietnam Bank Card Association hosted a meeting with the press to answer questions about the enforcement of the Circular 35 on service charges on domestic debit cards effective from March 1, 2013.
Mr Bui Quang Tien, Director of Settlement Department under the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), answered some questions raised by the press.
It is said that current ATM quality and service are now incommensurate to service charges?
The objective of fee collection is clearly defined from the very beginning. Better quality is to collect fees and fee collection is for better quality. Banks expect the fee collection will ensure better service to users. They have spent a huge amount of expenses and offered a lot of free services. Increasing the fees aim at guaranteeing benefits of banks and providing better services for users.
Banks always want to provide services at the service of life, not unaccepted ones.
How many banks have completed the expected charges? Do you think it is urgent when the SBV pushes credit institutions?
To date, 34 banks have built service tariffs on domestic debit cards and reported to the central bank. Among them, two banks had lower rates than recommended rates (VND200 - 500 per on-us transactions), 10 banks collected VND1,000 per transaction, and remainders did not plan to collect fees.
The Circular 35 specifies card service fees at VND0 - 1,000 per transaction in 2013, VND0 - 2,000 per transaction in 2014, and VND3,000 in 2015. The specific rates will be decided by card issuers.
Fee collection on users use cards of other issuers has been widely accepted.
How much will banks receive from their fees?
We have incomplete figures but the amount of joint fee collected from cash withdrawal is negligible.
Does the SBV have any plan for developing card payment and online payment? Supermarkets offer discounts for card payments while not applying this preference to cash payments. Do the SBV and commercial banks know about it?
This is fully reflected in the Government's Scheme. We also have the Plan 1131 issued by the SBV Governor in 2012. According to the plan, the country will have 250,000 points of sales (POS) by 2015 in order to reduce burdens on ATMs.
We also asked the Ministry of Industry and Trade to have regulations that force restaurants, hotels and supermarkets to install POS and asked the Ministry of Finance to issue regulations on fees and charges. We cannot let only the banking sector to increase the popularity of POS.
We had drastic instructions before December 31, 2012. On January 30, 2013, we issued directive documents concerning this issue. Supplying organisations must have software programmes to report to the State Bank. We assign SBV branches in provinces and cities to supervise quality and minimise insecurity in cash withdrawal at ATMs. It is impossible to make ATMs free from errors because they depend on different factors, both subjective and objective. We had directions to guide relevant organisations to do this well.
Many POS are collecting fees from customers. Is this legal? What will the central bank do if it is illegal?
It is now illegal to collect fees at POS. We will impose strict fines on this violation.
It is reported that workers in industrial parks only withdraw VND100,000 - VND200,000 each time and the fee rate of VND1,000 per transaction is too expensive for them.
We will have friendly and sharing policies for users in industrial parks and export processing zones like offering free transactions or discounts on their total transactions.
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