Banks to postpone fees on internal ATM transactions

May 09, 2012 | 10:37

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Members of Vietnam Bank Card Association have decided not to collect internal ATM transaction fees this year.

Fees on internal ATM transactions postponed

The agreement was reached at the association's regular conference.

The task of collecting these fees and their level will ultimately be set by the State Bank of Vietnam. It will take into consideration expenditure on ATM installations and maintenance to decide a reasonable fee.

Concerns were raised when Vietcombank said it would collect a monthly fee of VND3,300 ($0.16) for account management and another VND3,300 fee for internal account transfers. The decision received approval from many members of Vietnam Bank Card Association. The banks said they are suffering losses from ATM and these fees were to maintain the machines and business.

However, former head of a bank's trading division said that with 40 million ATM cards issued, the bank earned about VND2 trillion ($96 million) from VND50,000 ($2.4) issuing fees.

Not only that, the bank also earned a huge amount from many other ATM services such as charging VND3,300 for the use of another bank’s ATM, a balance inquiry fee of VND550-1,650 ($0.3-0.8), and VND5,000-20,000 ($2.4-1.0) for releasing cards that have been swallowed by the machine. Some banks collect VND10,000 ($4.8) fee for reissued lost or stolen cards.

However the biggest saving the banks make via ATMs is on staff wages and branch set up costs, which are entirely avoided through the provision of ATM services.

Dtinews

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