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The facts on ATM-based salaries
The use of ATM cards to receive monthly salaries is not a compulsory measure for workers at export processing zones and industrial parks and retirees.
It is only being used for officials and civil servants working for Government agencies and People’s Committees from the grassroots to central levels, the deputy head of the State Bank of Viet Nam’s Payment Department, Duong Hong Phuong, has said.
But since the policy began months ago, many companies made ATM withdrawals compulsory, leading to a spate of complaints from workers.
"To use the ATM services, companies just signed contracts with the payment service providers, but they ignored agreements with workers," said Phuong.
This also occurred with retirement pensions paid by social welfare funds.
Phuong said the complaints were understandable, and that employees and retirees had faced problems when using ATM cards to draw their monthly salaries.
Technical problems at ATM machines and lack of knowledge about their use have compounded the problem.
Phuong said companies must enter into an agreement with employees first before paying salaries electronically via banks.
Few complaints have been heard from civil servants and Government officials as they are aware of the benefits of these advanced payment services.
According to figures from the State Bank of Viet Nam, the number of ATMs in HCM City increased by 25 per cent to 1,572 in the past six months, while Ha Noi’s ATMs increased by 21 per cent to 1,145 in the same period.
The plan to pay salaries via ATMs to Government officials and civil servants is expected to be further promoted in 2009.
SMEs and farmers
Signs indicating that inflation is under better control are now being seen but the impact of such policies remain burdensome to many small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Many of the companies are still struggling to get access to bank loans while farmers are seeking customers for their products.
According to senior economist Pham Chi Lan, many lychee growers in the northern province of Bac Giang are facing financial problems.
The province has 90,000ha under lychee cultivation but only a small number of lychee growers have sold their products for VND500 per kg. Many farmers have left their lychee orchards unharvested because sales from their products were even lower than the costs for picking ripe lychee.
Lan said enterprises could not get bank loans to purchase lychee and to process it for export, resulting in debt faced by growers who cannot find buyers for their ripe fruit.
Lan said many SMEs could not fulfill their export contracts because they could neither get bank loans nor accept sky-high interest rates.
The Association of Industry and Trade in Ha Noi said SME profits in 2008 were much lower than last year’s 7 per cent.
High interest rates are also a problem at commercial banks, as many clients do not want loans with such rates while others who are more able to pay, especially SMEs in the private sector, cannot get access to bank loans.
In the past two weeks, a number of commercial banks have cut the lending interest rate by a maximum 1.3 per cent annually. But only Eximbank provided loans to all clients while other banks restricted their services to their traditional clients.
Theoretically, it’s difficult for an SME to operate at a profit with the current lending interest rate of 20 to 20.5 per cent. But commercial banks were not able to make their services more competitive by lowering lending interest rates as the current deposit interest rate remains below the inflation rate.
According to economist Nguyen Quang A, the biggest problem currently facing most SMEs is how to reach bank loans and use it effectively for their businesses, rather than the level of interest rate of the loans.
VNS
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