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This is the second attempt by commercial banks to collect ATM fees. In the past Banks have asked to charge fees, but the plan was not approved by the State Bank of
The proposal on collecting ATM fees has already faced strong opposition from cardholders, who believe that ATM collection are contrary to the state’s policy on encouraging non-cash payment. They say that many cardholders, in order to avoid paying ATM fees many times, will withdraw all the money they have in their accounts.
Hoang, officer of a media company, said that banks can get many benefits from providing ATM services already, therefore, they should not think of collecting ATM fees. 22 million cards have been issued. If every card has the minimum balance of 50,000 dong as required, banks can use the 1,100 billion dong as investment capital.
The Vietnam Card Association has insisted on the need to collect fee from ATM transactions because the expenses banks have to pay per ATM transaction average around 5000 dong. Currently, cardholders have to pay fee when they make transactions with ATMs owned by other banks, while they do not have to pay fees when making transactions with ATMs of the banks that issue their cards.
The Card Association argues that the free withdrawal of cash from ATM will encourage people to use cash, all the while banks do not have money for reinvestment, and then do not have money to expand the network and improve quality service.
An officer of a bank said that the initial expenditure for every ATM is about $20,000, while banks have to bear many other kinds of expenses during the ATM operation. He said that most of banks now have to cover losses for ATM services, about 10-30 billion dong a year. Currently, only three banks can make profit from ATM services thanks to the large and effective POS system. There are 36,620 POS throughout the country.
The card association has also proposed that the Ministry of Finance slash the import tariff on various kinds of specialized equipment for using cards.
According to Nguyen Thu Ha, Chairwoman of the Vietnam Banking Card Association, commercial banks will not collect ATM fee in 2010. However, it wishes to begin collecting fee from 2011, that is, if this is approved by the State Bank of
Source: An ninh
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