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Banks pay more attention to service development
Vietnamese banks, whose incomes mainly come from credit, now think that they need to pay more attention to the development of bank services.
In fact, banks well understand that they need to develop non-credit services. However, the fluctuations of the monetary market recently have made them more determined to focus on developing services.
A lot of banks, in addition to the development of traditional credit, have chosen to develop specific services. Dong A Bank, for example, has been focusing on card services, while Techcombank is trying to assert itself as the leader in Internet banking.
Most recently, An Binh Bank has marketed a series of new products, including YOUstudy (funding overseas study), which proves to be a good financial solution for parents who have children going studying overseas. The borrowers can borrow up to 100% of tuition and subsistence fees.
The bank is also providing YOUautopay, which allows clients to pay for electricity and water bills automatically. An Binh Bank will automatically take money from clients’ accounts to pay electricity and water service providers under the contracts signed between the bank and clients.
Techcombank has successfully connected its ATM system with HSBC’s international ATM system in order to bring more facilities to clients using retail banking services.
In May, Techcombank began providing the service of collecting airfares for Pacific Airlines via Internet banking and SMS. Techcombank and Pacific Airlines are the first companies to have such an arrangement. From now on, clients can pay for airfares through three channels: going directly to the bank’s branches, via Internet banking and mobile phone messages.
In another effort, Techcombank has also developed a service that allows people to make payments for products and services via Internet banking. Clients using F@st i-Bank service can make payments to providers with money transfer transactions via the Internet.
The state owned VietinBank has launched a new service, SMS Banking, which helps card holders manage and check their accounts conveniently. With SMS Banking, E-Partner’s holders only need a mobile phone to make necessary transactions: check account balance, check exchange rates, interest rates, any time and anywhere.
Investment in services is investment in the future
In its plan to help curb inflation and stabililse the macroeconomy, the Bank of Investment and Development (BIDV) wrote that it ‘needs to pay attention to developing services’.
Tran Bac Ha, General Director of BIDV, said the bank has set up a division in charge of surveying and developing banking products. Ha said that services have seen very high growth rates in the last few years, but the bank wants a higher growth rate this year, at 40%.
Dam The Thai, Banking Service Expert under ABBank, said that services will provide more facilities for depositors and help clients feel safe with the bank’s services.
Nguyen Duc Vinh, General Director of Techcombank, said that the service provision will bring new business opportunities to banks; therefore, banks will tend to make heavy investment in services in the time to come.
However, it is very costly to make investment in services as this requires both money and technology.
Thai with ABBank said that all the bank’s services have been developed based on the modern banking technology Corebanking T24. However, it is very money-consuming to develop a service while the services are provided free of charge. Analysts also say that most banks now have to import the technologies that serve the security of services.
VNN
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