Commercial banks boost retail banking segment by adjusting service fees

Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Viet Nam. Commercial banks are focusing on the retail segment by adjusting their service fees to individual customers since the beginning of the year.

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 VND8,800 for the maintenance of their accounts. In addition, the fee for money transfer services among different banks is VND9,900 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 Viet Nam (Vietcombank) has increased its service fees since the beginning of this month.

The monthly fee of its SMS banking service increased from VND8,800 to VND11,000, including VAT (value-added tax).

Vietcombank has begun charging VND2,200 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 VND2,200 for each transaction worth less than VND50 million (US$2,196) and VND5,500 for each transaction worth more than VND50 million.

The fee for an inter-bank transaction of below VND10 million is VND7,700, and when the amount is more than VND10 million, it charges 0.02 per cent of the total amount per transaction.

Financial expert Bui Quang Tin 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 Viet 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 VND563 trillion; while there were 43.5 million POS and EDC transactions with a total value of VND95 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 VND42.6 trillion to VND325 trillion in the fourth quarter of last year.

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