Vietnam commercial banks boost retail banking segment

Commercial banks have adjusted their service fees to individual customers since beginning of the year in order to focus on the retail segment.

For money transfer services in the same banking system, some commercial banks, such as VIB, VietinBank and Techcombank, do not charge for individual customers when using electronic services.

These banks charge VNĐ8,800 for the maintenance of their accounts. In addition, the fee for money transfer services among different banks is VNĐ9,900 or higher per transaction, or as a percentage of the transaction amount ranging from 0.1 to 0.3 per cent.

The Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Việt Nam (Vietcombank) has increased its service fees since the beginning of this month.

The monthly fee of its SMS banking service increased from VNĐ8,800 to VNĐ11,000, including VAT (value-added tax).

Vietcombank has begun charging VNĐ2,200 per transaction from Vietcombank account holders via its mobile banking app from March 1.

For internet banking service, Vietcombank’s customers will have to pay VNĐ2,200 for each transaction worth less than VNĐ50 million (US$2,196) and VNĐ5,500 for each transaction worth more than VNĐ50 million.

The fee for an inter-bank transaction of below VNĐ10 million is VNĐ7,700, and when the amount is more than VNĐ10 million, it charges 0.02 per cent of the total amount per transaction.

Financial expert Bùi Quang Tín said that the competition among bank service fees was quite fierce as some banks offered free of charge inter-bank money transfer services in order to attract more customers.

“The recent increase in banking service fees at several commercial banks is understandable as the banks must invest more money to ensure security systems to meet stricter requirements from customers,” he said.

According to the State Bank of Việt Nam, commercial banks issued 132 million cards as of the end of last year.

Last year, the number of transactions, including withdrawals and transfers, via ATMs was over 206 million transactions valued at VNĐ563 trillion; while there were 43.5 million POS and EDC transactions with a total value of VNĐ95 trillion.

As for domestic transactions for non-cash payments, bank cards ranked second in terms of the number of transactions.

Individual deposit account balances increased by VNĐ42.6 trillion to VNĐ325 trillion in the fourth quarter of last year.

With a population of more than 93 million and rising consumption, Việt Nam is considered a destination in the retail banking segment.