HCM City (VNA) - Commercial banks have adjusted theirservice fees to individual customers since the beginning of the year in orderto focus on the retail segment.

For money transfer services in the same banking system, some commercial banks,such as VIB, VietinBank and Techcombank, do not charge for individual customerswhen using electronic services.

These banks charge 8,800 VND for the maintenance of their accounts.

In addition, the fee for money transfer services among different banks is 9,900VND or higher per transaction, or as a percentage of the transaction amountranging from 0.1 to 0.3 percent.

The Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank)has increased its service fees since the beginning of this month.

The monthly fee of its SMS banking service increasedfrom 8,800 VND to 11,000 VND, including VAT (value-added tax).

Vietcombank has begun charging 2,200 VND per transaction fromVietcombank account holders via its mobile banking app from March 1.

For internet banking service, Vietcombank’s customers will have to pay2,200 VND for each transaction worth less than 50 million VND (2,196USD) and 5,500 VND for each transaction worth more than 50 millionVND.

The fee for an inter-bank transaction of below 10 million VND is 7,700VND, and when the amount is more than 10 million VND, it charges0.02 percent of the total amount per transaction.

Financial expert Bui Quang Tin said that the competition among bank servicefees was quite fierce as some banks offered free ofcharge inter-bank money transfer services in order to attract morecustomers.

"The recent increase in banking service fees at several commercial banksis understandable as the banks must invest more money to ensure securitysystems meet stricter requirements from customers," he said.

According to the State Bank of Vietnam, commercial banks issued 132 millioncards as of the end of last year.

Last year, the number of transactions, including withdrawals and transfers, viaATMs was over 206 million transactions valued at 563 trillion VND; while therewere 43.5 million POS and EDC transactions with a total value of 95 trillionVND.

As for domestic transactions for non-cash payments, bank cards ranked second interms of the number of transactions.

Individual deposit account balances increased by 42.6 trillion VND to 325trillion VND in the fourth quarter of last year.

With a population of more than 93 million and rising consumption, Vietnam isconsidered a destination in the retail banking segment.-VNA