Representatives of the State Bank of Vietnam and local banks pose for a group photo at the launch` ceremony for domestic chip-enabled credit cards and prepaid cards on January 25 – PHOTO: VAN LY

HANOI – Seven local banks and the National Payment Corporation of Vietnam, or Napas, on January 25 jointly held a ceremony to launch domestic chip credit cards following the State Bank of Vietnam’s direction to promote cashless payments and fight black credit.

The seven banks comprise the Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade, the Viet Capital Bank, the Asia Commercial Bank, the HCMC Development Joint Stock Commercial Bank, the Bao Viet Bank, the Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial Bank and the Vietnam Thuong Tin Commerical Joint Stock Bank.

Addressing the launch event, Nguyen Kim Anh, Deputy Governor of the central bank, said that domestic chip credit cards issued by Vietnamese banks and finance businesses have some notable features, wherein cardholders can shop first and pay later with an interest-free period of up to 55 days. The domestic credit cards will be accepted throughout the networks of all banks, and fees for card issuers, acceptance points and users will remain reasonable.

The domestic chip credit cards are expected to promote cashless payments, enable customers to gain easier access to and use banking services at reasonable costs and help tackle black credit, the deputy governor said.

Cardholders will not have to pay fees for transactions, but for cash withdrawal activities conducted at ATMs not operated by the card issuers. The fees for cash withdrawal would be 1-2% of the transaction value (a minimum of VND10,000-20,000 per transaction), much lower than the fee of 4% on other international credit cards.

For transactions using the domestic chip credit cards, the acceptance points will have to pay fees of 1.1-1.3% of the transaction values, lower than that of other international credit cards at 2.5%. The fees will remain lower for public service providers in the fields of health care, education, and transportation.

Earlier, some local banks had issued domestic credit cards and prepaid cards without following unified technical standards. As a result, the cards could only be accepted on the networks of the card issuers.