People crowd to withdraw money at ATMs on the eve of Tet

According to the reporter's records, on the afternoon of February 1, at ATMs in the town areaDo Luongalways crowded, overloaded. The long queue of people is increasing, inside, each ATM always has 3-4 people on duty.

Long lines of people at ATMs in Do Luong town on the afternoon of February 1. Photo: Nguyen Chau

Ms. Le Thi Hue, a resident of Nhan Son commune (Do Luong) sighed: "Receiving money from my child working far away, I excitedly rode my motorbike nearly 20 km to town to withdraw the money, however, when I got there,ATMIt was crowded, I had to wait for more than 30 minutes but it was still not my turn, many people who came after me couldn't wait and went back...".

In Dien Chau town, a similar situation occurred. Although there were 6 ATMs of banks, all of them were packed with people. Besides the people of the district, there were also many people traveling on National Highway 1A to withdraw money, leading to a situation of "more and more crowded".

In Dien Chau town, ATMs were also overloaded on the afternoon of January 31. Photo: Nguyen Chau

It is worth mentioning that withdrawing money in the districts takes a lot of time because many rural people are not proficient in using ATMs. Some people even ask others to withdraw money for them, causing the withdrawal to take up to tens of minutes. There are cases where people withdraw large amounts of money but do not go to the bank but withdraw at ATMs, causing them to have to withdraw many times, prolonging the time.

Mr. Nguyen Van Son - employee of a branchbankin Dien Chau district said: "It is not uncommon for people to crowd to withdraw money on the eve of Tet, however, this year this situation happened earlier, since the 15th of December, the number of people withdrawing money has increased dramatically and ATMs have had to operate continuously, some overloaded machines even had to stop for maintenance".

Faced with the overload, bank staff have been assigned to advise people not to jostle, push, keep distance and wear masks at cash withdrawal points to prevent the epidemic. However, the jostling situation has not decreased, especially on weekends and during peak hours.

Some ATMs were overloaded and temporarily closed for maintenance. Photo: Nguyen Chau

The reason for the surge in withdrawals is due to the influence ofpandemic, many people want to withdraw money early to quickly shop for Tet, avoiding the jostling situation when going out on the days before Tet. Besides, currently, many children working far away in the localities due to the epidemic situation cannot return home for Tet, so they send money home early for their families to shop.

Overloading at ATMs occurs mainly in districts, because there are too many people withdrawing money but the number of ATMs is very small, on average each district only has 5-7 ATMs.Vinh CityCrowding to withdraw money near Tet still occurs, however, it is only localized and lasts for a short time because people have more choices when ATMs are widely distributed.

To reduce the pressure of cash withdrawal overload during the Tet holiday, authorities recommend that people should arrange to withdraw money during off-peak hours; if withdrawing a large amount of money, they can go to bank transaction points, avoiding having to go to ATMs...