This aimed to promote cashless payments as a measure to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.
NAPAS on March 25 to cut its service fees for electronic switching for local banks from 1,800 VND to 900 VND per transaction of sums worth 500,001 VND to 2 million VND each, which enabled local banks to reduce the interbank fund transfer fees to customers.
The thirty-seven commercial banks which slashed their fees accounted for 98.9 percent of the total fund transfer transactions processed by NAPAS.
Of them, 14, accounting for 41.9 percent of fund transfer transactions processed by NAPAS cut their fees to zero for transactions conducted on all money transfer channels, namely Techcombank, TBBank, MBBank, VPBank, MSB, PvcomBank, Viet Capital Bank, OCB, BaoViet Bank, Hong Leong Bank, SeaBank, Eximbank and UOB. Shinhan Bank offered zero charges for transactions via Internet and Mobile banking.
The other 23 banks cut their fees more or equal to the NAPAS’s fee reduction. Their fees now ranged from 1,000 VND to 10,000 VND depending on customers and transaction channels.
In mid-February, NAPAS cut the fee for electronic switching from 1,800 VND to 500 VND per transaction for sums worth 500,000 VND or less, which made 43 out of 45 member banks of NAPAS cut fees for customers by 90 percent. Some even offered zero charges.
A representative from NAPAS said that reducing fees would significantly affect NAPAS’s revenue but cutting fees would be critical to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, promote cashless payment and create favourable conditions for e-commerce and online shopping.
The total number of fast interbank fund transfer transactions of sums worth 500,000 VND and less in March increased more than 32 percent over February.
VNA/VNP
