Banks' new "trick": increase ATM withdrawal fees

Banks are planning to raise the ATM withdrawal fee by about 2,000 VND more than the current amount in early June.

If this becomes true, each time a customer withdraws money from an ATM, they will have to pay a fee of VND5,500, instead of the current VND3,300.

In addition, banks have also proposed to the State Bank to be allowed to charge fees for domestic withdrawals (cardholders withdrawing money at the ATM of the card-issuing bank). Previously, the State Bank has rejected this proposal three times.

It is likely that customers will have to pay domestic ATM withdrawal fees.

The fee for off-net transactions via ATMs at banks is commonly at 3,000 - 3,300 VND per transaction. For other transactions such as transferring money, checking balances or printing statements, banks apply a rate of 1,500 - 1,650 VND per transaction.

According to banks, this price is not enough to cover the investment costs of banks, which are on the rise. Specifically, card-issuing banks must pay 35-50% to the switching organization (an intermediary unit connecting transactions between banks, such as BankNet or Smartlink). The remaining amount must be paid to the payment bank (a bank that has an ATM and advances cash to customers).

In addition, investment costs have increased recently because banks have had to increase security to protect ATMs as there have been more and more cases of ATM vandalism to steal money from criminals.

As for the proposal to charge for domestic withdrawals, the reason is that while the investment cost for the system is very large, banks do not have a source of income for the investment in the ATM system. Representatives of banks all said that the amount of money maintained in customers' accounts only corresponds to the amount of money that banks must pre-load into ATMs as well as to reserve for fund replenishment, so banks do not benefit from this amount of money.

According to Dat Viet