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It’s not the right time to collect ATM fee
Card holders have been expressing strong opposition to banks’ plan to collect ATM fees as of July 1, 2008. However, banks are insisting on the fee.
The director of a bank in HCM City, on one hand, said that it is necessary to collect ATM fees to cover expenses and investments; on the other hand, he said that it is now not the right time to do so.
He said that POS remain unpopular in supermarts and shopping areas, and card holders have to draw money from ATMs to pay for commodities. This means that clients will have to draw money from ATMs and pay fees for ATM transactions, while with POS, they don’t have to pay fees.
The director said that if the Card Association’s members still insist on fee collection as of July 1, they still need to reconsider the fee levels, suggesting VND1-3,000 per transaction.
With such a regulation, the more transactions card holders make with ATMs, the more they have to pay, and for low income earners, several thousand VND is enough for several breakfasts.
Meanwhile, a lot of people say that banks are trying to create difficulties for card holders.
In fact, banks now can use the huge volume of capital being kept in card holders’ accounts (most banks require that every account has the minimum balance of VND50,000 or VND100,000). Tan, an officer of a company in district 3 in HCM City, said that banks should exempt fees for card holders, in return for using the low-cost capital of card holders.
Ngo Thi Huynh Loan in Binh Thanh district said that banks should remove the regulation on the minimum balance in account. If so, she can draw money once a month when she gets her salary, and she has to pay a fee of VND1,000 only once a month.
However, banks still insist that they need to collect fees to cover their investment expenses, especially the banks whose clients are middle class.
Nguyen Thanh Toai, Deputy General Director of ACB, said that its clients have been paying for other banks – 1% or VND20,000 at minimum, and the monthly fee for account management – VND10,000).
Most of ACB’s cards are international cards, including MasterCard and Visa Card, while domestic ATM cards just account for a small proportion.
ACB, whose clients are not workers and low income earners, firmly believes that it will not face any difficulties when collecting fees from ATM transactions.
General Director of Techcombank Nguyen Duc Vinh also said that the bank needs to collect fee to get money for upgrading and expanding card services. Vinh said that several millions of dollars have been spent on several thousands of ATMs and POS at supermarts and trade centres. “Clients have been using services free of charge since 2004, and they now should think of paying for services,” he said.
VNN
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