Banks "quietly" collect ATM fees

The Vietnam Card Association confirmed that in 2012 there would be no ATM transaction fees, but in reality, many banks have quietly increased ATM fees.

According to a reporter's survey, BIDV, Agribank, and Vietcombank have collected domestic transaction fees of VND2,200 - 3,300/transaction...

Ms. Mai Huong (living in Cau Giay, Hanoi) uses a Techcombank ATM card and is upset: To deal with the situation of ATMs often malfunctioning and interrupting transactions, she and many others often have to print out account balance statements. Understanding this mentality, many banks use the trick of limiting withdrawals to only 1 - 1.5 million VND/time, forcing customers to make multiple transactions, print statements, and pay more fees.

A customer using an ATM card of DongA Bank, working at a bank on Tong Dan Street (Hanoi) also expressed concern, after transferring money within the network for a whole month, she discovered that the bank charged a fee of 5,000 VND for a transfer amount of 1 million VND. After calling the card office staff of this bank, she learned that the bank had been charging a fee for transferring money within the network since this month.

A banking expert said that while the quality of ATM transactions has not improved, ATM transaction incidents still occur frequently, such as: ATMs do not dispense money but accounts are still deducted; ATMs stop working when customers need to withdraw money (holidays, Tet), then swallow cards and even "spit out" torn money... then banks "quietly" collect fees without notifying customers is unprofessional and lacks transparency.

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Ha, owner of a laundry facility in Thanh Tri, commented that to entice customers to borrow money, banks send text messages and emails with many attractive words. Some banks even call customers to invite them to borrow money. However, when collecting ATM fees, I did not receive any notification from the bank. “Just for your own benefit, forgetting the interests of customers is unacceptable…” - this customer spoke up indignantly.

Explaining why words do not match actions, many bank representatives explained and gave the reason that banks cannot continue to "bear losses" for the costs of maintaining and servicing ATM systems after a long period of free service. In fact, the cost of installing and maintaining ATM services is so high that banks have to bear losses when investing. On average, it costs about 600 million VND to buy an ATM. Then, in addition to spending several hundred million VND/day to replenish ATM funds, banks also spend tens of millions of VND/month on location costs, maintenance, police, security, etc.

However, banks are "forgetting" that there is a binding contract between them and their customers for using ATM services. Any changes in the use of ATM services, the bank must be responsible for notifying, explaining in detail, and convincing customers./.

According to (VOV) - LT