Consumer ire puts ATM charges on hold

22:19' 15/06/2008 (GMT+7) VietNamNet

After first announcing that all ATM transactions would be charged a minimum fee of 1,000 VND starting in July, the Vietnam Bank Card Association has now reconsidered its plan following questions about the current state of ATM services and infrastructure.

An ATM of the Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank)ATM cardholders began speaking out against the policy almost as soon as it was announced, claiming that the poor quality of most banks’ ATM services did not merit their collecting additional charges.

“If banks get fees from customers, they have to ensure good services. I don’t feel happy with the fact that at the moment sometimes ATMs don’t work properly,” said Nguyen Van Hung, construction engineer in Hanoi.

Many customers such as Nguyen Quoc Viet, a construction workers from Hanoi , say they face difficulty in finding an ATM at the end of month to get their salaries.

Students who often use the ATM as a means of receiving money from their families are vowing not to use the service anymore if fees are charged. “If the bank does so, it changes the contract with customers. Having to pay fees makes students’ lives more difficult,” said Tran Van Phu, sixth year student from Hanoi ’s Medical University.

The plan to charge fees has been delayed until the infrastructure is in place to improve ATM service quality, said the chairwoman of the Vietnam Bank Card Association, Nguyen Thu Ha. The association will propose to the State Bank the specifics on fee collection, but is not ready to choose a date for implementation.

The Government has been pushing business and agencies to move from paying salaries in cash to using banks and paying through ATMs since the beginning of 2008. Charging fees right now could work against this effort.

Right now only about 10 percent of Vietnamese people use bank services like ATM cards or credit cards, reported the MCKinsey company.

There are now about nine million cards in-use out of which 4,500 are ATM cards. An additional problem is that each ATM system only accepts certain kinds of cards. To help alleviate accessibility problems, banks are joining forces.

“With the present scale of the problem, it is very difficult for any bank to do it alone. So co-operating is the best way to improve the situation,” said Nguyen Duc Huong, general director of Lien Viet Bank. Banknetvn and Smarlink have officially operated their bank alliance for the last five months. With this new alliance, owners of cards belonging to Vietcombank, Vbard, BIDV, Vietinbank and Techcombank can do their transactions at ATMs.

By the end of March, the amount of ATMs of the five member banks had gone up to 3,614, accounting for 64 percent of the total machines in the market.As planned, by the third quarter of 2008, Banknetvn and Smartlink will cooperate to increase the number of machines to 4,500.

VietNamNet - Consumer ire puts ATM charges on hold

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