Overseas Vietnamese tend to send home remittances in Vietnamese dong and this is becoming a more popular trend, said Mr Pham Thanh Ha, Deputy General Director of the Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank), in an interview with Vietnam Business Forum. Duy Anh reports.
Remittances sent to Vietnam by overseas Vietnamese tend to increase sharply towards the end of the year. Does Vietcombank have any measures and solutions to attract remittances and facilitate overseas Vietnamese people to send their money home?
Always desiring to make all customers happy and lucky at the time of taking remittances in New Year 2014 and support overseas Vietnamese people worldwide to send remittances to their relatives in Vietnam, Vietcombank is carrying out a lucky draw programme for individual remittance receivers at Vietcombank from November 2013 to January 2014. In addition, Vietcombank also asks its partners to actively deploy incentive and promotion programme for senders when they send money to Vietnam.
o TNMonex Company - a money transfer company in the United States - is carrying out a promotion programme under which the service charge is just US$5 for transactions worth US$500 -1,000 from September 20 to December 20; the service charge is free for new customers; the charge is also free for customers making their transactions worth less than US$300 on their birthday. It also organises weekly lucky draw programmes in November, December 2013 and January 2014. Weekly winners will get US$100 each.
o Wells Fargo, a US-based bank, has gifts and offers free money transfer to Vietnam for customers from January 13 to February 14, 2014.
With its strength and experience in international payment and money transfer, powered by 400 branches and transaction offices in 48 provinces, Vietcombank is always ready and capable of meeting daily foreign currency demand of customers, even at peak times of remittance payment.
Could you tell us solutions and exchange methods to attract customers with other hard foreign currencies like Japanese yen and Korean won?
When customers receive Korean won, they can receive Vietnamese dong, based on quoted exchange rates. They can also receive hard foreign currencies like Japanese yen, US dollars, euro and Canadian dollars.
As a leading foreign exchange bank in Vietnam with relationship with 1,700 correspondent banks and bank branches in more than 120 countries and territories as well as direct cooperation in express cash transfer services with world-leading companies like Money Gram, TNMonex, Wells Fargo and UniTeller, we can thus hold overwhelming advantages in remittance business.
Do you have any advice to overseas Vietnamese and guest workers when they send money to Vietnam (use local currencies and convert to US dollars)?
Remittances tend to increase sharply at the end of the year. Senders should pay attention to following aspects when they send money to Vietnam.
- Send popular hard currencies which can be easily exchanged to other currencies like Vietnamese dong in Vietnam. In reality, guest workers tend to send US dollars because of easy exchange to Vietnamese dong and stable exchange rate.
- Vietcombank can now meet customers’ demand for nearly 20 kinds of hard currencies like USD, AUD, EUR, GBP, JPY, CAD, CHF and SGD and exchange them to Vietnamese dong. Recently, more people exchange to Vietnamese dong when they receive the remittance because the local currency has a stronger position and deposit rates are also higher.
Remittances to Vietnam in 2013 are equal or higher than that of 2012. Is the interest rate difference is cited as one reason?
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Total remittances at Vietcombank in 2013 were estimated at US$1.23 billion, equaling the figure in 2012.
In addition to SWIFT transfer services (accounting for 91 percent of remittance value) with 1,700 correspondent banks, Vietcombank now can provide express payment services with partners such as MoneyGram, Wells Fargo and TNMonex.
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According to statistics, remittances to Vietnam have increased in the recent years and remittance at the end of 2013 is no exception. Experts said that the increase in remittances to Vietnam was made because of many reasons. Firstly, many Vietnamese overseas, including overseas Vietnamese and guest workers, are living and working in developed countries. Secondly, the government’s incentive policies encourage overseas Vietnamese to invest in the country. Thirdly, Vietnam has favorable policies on remittances receivers. Fourthly, remittance service is relatively developed with many banks and companies that provide payment services with competitive cost, good quality and service throughout the network. Fifthly, the difference in forex rate interest in Vietnam and foreign currencies as well as the difference in rate interest between foreign currencies and Vietnamese dong in Vietnam are also factors that attract remittances to Vietnam.
How much in percentage overseas remittances are exchanged into Vietnamese dong at Vietcombank?
With stable exchange rate and strengthened local currency, more remittances are exchanged into Vietnamese dong. Notably, in 2013 remittances were converted into Vietnamese dong at Vietcombank rose markedly as up to 25 percent was exchanged, compared with 20 percent in 2012 and 10 - 15 percent in 2011 and earlier years.
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