Tourism authority steadfast on tour guide cards

HCMC – The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) stands by its decision on professional cards for tour guides, saying these employees have to obtain the new plastic cards under the new Tourism Law if they are to continue their job.

Vu The Binh, head of the Travel Department of VNAT, told the Daily that the paper-based cards expired on September 30, and no new deadline is now given.

“We need to comply with the Tourism Law. Tour guides can’t serve tourists without these professional (plastic) cards,” he said, rejecting a new request from HCMC to soften the stance to give tour guides more time to meet the requirements.

Under the new law, tour guides serving international travelers must have a bachelor’s degree, a new requirement that many professional guides fail to meet.

The HCMC Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism last week asked the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and VNAT to ease the qualification requirements to solve the situation, especially for tour guides serving guests from China, Germany and Japan.

The city’s tourism department asked VNAT to allow such tour guides to change for the new cards first and then complete the degree over the next three years.

The city’s department said that over half of the professional tour guides in HCMC catering to foreign tourists cannot change their paper-based cards for the plastic due to higher standards.

“In 2006, we once allowed the provincial tourism departments to issue temporary cards for tour guides, giving them time to complete the degree, but many people ignored the requirement. We need to follow the law,” he said.

According to the HCMC Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, after three months of issuing new cards to tour guides, fewer than 700 guides have obtained the plastic compared to the number of 1,680 professional guides in the city.

In related news, VNAT has asked all international travel companies to change licenses before December 30. The change is required under the Tourism Law, which took effect in January last year.

VNAT said the old licenses would expire on that date.

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Credit card growth sluggish despite incentives

Many banks in Vietnam have tied up with electronics stores, supermarkets, restaurants, spas, and others to offer discounts to card users

High interest rates, annual fees and safety considerations have prevented the credit card industry from getting off to a roaring start in Vietnam.

Although both domestic and foreign banks have launched several promotion programmes, they still have failed to attract enough customers to use credit cards for their shopping and other needs.

Because they expect the market to be a lucrative one in the future, the banks are pushing the use of cards so as to acquire and expand their market share.

The promotion campaigns have included direct marketing and the granting of credit cards without any fees.

Ho Anh Ngoc, head of retail banking in the southern region for Techcombank, said his bank plans to increase the number of its credit card users to 23,000 by the end of this year. It is targeting customers from all income segments.

Other banks such as Vietcombank, Eximbank, Asia Commercial Bank have launched their own promotions to expand the use of credit cards.

Customers travelling to Singapore between August 27 and September 30, can get a set of X-mini Capsule speakers from Eximbank if they spend at least $500 using their Visa card over three days.

Phi Thi Phuong, head of Eximbank's card management department said since early this year, Eximbank has issued 4,000 credit cards, increasing the total number of customers to 30,000.

To attract more customers, international banks like HSBC and ANZ have sought to increase their market share by marketing on websites and through emails and phone calls to customers.

The banks have also linked up with trade centres and supermarkets to offer discounts for those using Visa or MasterCard for their shopping.

Hoang Long, who works for a transportation company in District 3, said he received an invitation to open a credit card from ANZ, but failed to get one because his monthly salary was less than VND5 million (US$256).

Furthermore, late payments on a Visa card attract very high interest rates of between 1.5 percent to 1.9 percent per month, and this is something that gives pause for thought to Vietnamese clients.

HSBC and Techcombank levy overdue fees of 1.87 percent and 1.6 percent per month respectively.

Card owners also have to pay other kinds of fees.

Nguyen Tu Anh, director of Smartlink Card Joint Stock Co, said customers have to pay considerable attention to opening fees, annual costs, loan rates and exchange rates for international payments.

Hai Duyen, a regular customer of Techcombank, said credit cards were not all as safe as presumed. Recently, she had her pocket picked, and lost VND20 million ($1,025) through her visa card.

According to Duyen, credit cards do not require any password like the ATM card. Thieves can use a forged signature.

Moreover, Vietnamese customers are still not used to using cards for their shopping, and prefer to use cash instead.

Also, many shopping centres are yet to install POS machines to accept credit card payments.

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Credit card growth sluggish despite incentives

High interest rates, annual fees and safety considerations have
prevented the credit card industry from getting off to a roaring start
in Vietnam.

Although both domestic and foreign
banks have launched several promotion programmes, they still have failed
to attract enough customers to use credit cards for their shopping and
other needs.

Because they expect the market to be a
lucrative one in the future, the banks are pushing the use of cards so
as to acquire and expand their market share.

The promotion campaigns have included direct marketing and the granting of credit cards without any fees.

Ho Anh Ngoc, head of retail banking in the southern region for
Techcombank, said his bank plans to increase the number of its credit
card users to 23,000 by the end of this year. It is targeting customers
from all income segments.

Other banks such as
Vietcombank, Eximbank, Asia Commercial Bank have launched their own
promotions to expand the use of credit cards.

Customers travelling to Singapore between August 27 and September
30, can get a set of X-mini Capsule speakers from Eximbank if they spend
at least 500 USD using their Visa card over three days.

Phi Thi Phuong, head of Eximbank's card management department said
since early this year, Eximbank has issued 4,000 credit cards,
increasing the total number of customers to 30,000.

To attract
more customers, international banks like HSBC and ANZ have sought to
increase their market share by marketing on websites and through emails
and phone calls to customers.

The banks have also
linked up with trade centres and supermarkets to offer discounts for
those using Visa or MasterCard for their shopping.

Hoang Long, who works for a transportation company in District 3, said
he received an invitation to open a credit card from ANZ, but failed to
get one because his monthly salary was less than 5 million VND (256
USD).

Furthermore, late payments on a Visa card
attract very high interest rates of between 1.5 percent to 1.9 percent
per month, and this is something that gives pause for thought to
Vietnamese clients.

HSBC and Techcombank levy overdue fees of 1.87 percent and 1.6 percent per month respectively.

Card owners also have to pay other kinds of fees.

Nguyen Tu Anh, director of Smartlink Card Joint Stock Co, said
customers have to pay considerable attention to opening fees, annual
costs, loan rates and exchange rates for international payments.

Hai Duyen, a regular customer of Techcombank, said credit cards were
not all as safe as presumed. Recently, she had her pocket picked, and
lost 20 million VND (1,025 USD) through her visa card.

According to Duyen, credit cards do not require any password like the ATM card. Thieves can use a forged signature.

Moreover, Vietnamese customers are still not used to using cards for their shopping, and prefer to use cash instead.

Also, many shopping centres are yet to install POS machines to accept credit card payments./.

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Validity of tour guide cards extended to end-Sept

HCMC – Local tour guides can use their paper-based practicing cards until September 30, instead of on Thursday, following a new decision by the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT).

VNAT earlier asked the provincial departments of culture, sports and tourism to complete the issuance of the new plastic cards by September 1, but this job cannot be completed due to strict requirements provided by the Tourism Law.

The law forces tour guides to have a bachelor degree but many experienced guides for markets such as Germany, Italy, Japan, China, Russia and South Korea find it impossible to meet this requirement, meaning they cannot change their cards.

This explains why only 283 of 1,680 professional card holders serving foreign tourists in HCMC as the country’s tourist hub have had their cards replaced so far.

The new rule has put many tourism companies at stake, such as those serving Chinese-speaking tourists. The city has only 184 tour guides responsible for tourists from China, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and Taiwan but visitor arrivals from these markets are on the steady increase.

Last year, Chinese-speaking visitors to HCMC accounted for 21.6%, or more than 500,000, of the total number of international arrivals. For that reason, many companies will certainly fall short of tour guides if these people fail to change their cards.

“Just about half of the tour guides can change their cards but the proportion of eligible Chinese-speaking guides is even lower because many of them do not have a bachelor degree,” said Nguyen Duc Chi, deputy head of the Travel Division of the city’s Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

He said VNAT’s latest decision to the extend the deadline for card change would help resolve the problem for French-speaking guides because they had 10 years’ experiences and a high-school diploma on French before 1975 as required.

“To me, the requirements should be flexible depending on experiences and skills rather than an academic degree. But the law has no mention of work experience,” Chi said.

Chi said the department was not sure whether it could get the card changing job done by the end of this month.

For tour guides for domestic visitors who now have certificates issued by their travel companies, they will also have to register for the new cards with the administration.

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City promotes prepaid bus cards

Commuters get on a bus in downtown HCMC. The HCMC public transport control center will exempt commuters from the issuing fee for prepaid Smartcards from early September - Photo: TTXVN

HCMC – The HCMC public transport control center has said it will exempt commuters from the issuing fee for prepaid Smartcards from September 1.

Passengers will top up VND69,000 for yearly cards, VND90,000 for monthly cards, and VND63,000 for monthly student cards.

Monthly and yearly cards are transferable excepting student cards, said Le Hai Phong, deputy director of the center.

A passenger getting on a bus must insert the card into a scanning device that will automatically deduct the fee for that trip from his or her card. Bus conductors would ensure those using student cards are eligible.

The two piloted routes using prepaid cards are Route No. 1 from Ben Thanh to Binh Tay markets and Route No. 27 passing through Ben Thanh-Au Co-An Suong.

Prepaid cards previously cost VND30,000. Saigon Bus Management and Cho Lon are the only stations that have been issuing the cards.

Also from September 1, the subsidized bus Route No. 104 from An Suong stop to Nong Lam University would increase Monday-Friday bus services to 166 from 158.  The number of daily weekend trips on that route would rise from 148 to 156.

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Vietnamese prefer cash to plastic, banks discover

Many banks in Vietnam have tied up with electronics stores, supermarkets, restaurants, spas, and others to offer discounts to card users

Credit and other cards may have come a long way from the high transaction and other fees of the past, with banks now even offering discounts and freebies to attract customers, but they still face hurdles in popularizing the cards.

Many banks have tied up with electronics stores, supermarkets, restaurants, spas, and others to offer discounts to card users.

Sacombank clients, for instance, get 5-30 percent discounts at 200 restaurants, coffee shops, and malls in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. These promotions have helped the bank to increase transactions by 30 percent since the end of last year.

Trinh Thuong Thuc, director of card services at Vietcombank in HCMC, said from September holders of American Express card will get reward points based on their transactions at more than 200 Amex points of sale. In the beginning, the reward will be 0.1 percent of transaction value and can be obtained in cash or kind.

Le Tri Thong, vice president of East Asia Bank, said increasing card transactions will decrease the use of cash, enabling banks to cut ATM and other costs.

But many banks have failed to advertise these promotions. VD, a card holder, said his bank did not inform him even about its largest ever promotion recently. Many card holders learn about promotions at restaurants and shops, and are often caught without their cards when they learn about them.

Banks claim their advertising is limited by budget constraints.

Another factor that limits the effectiveness of promotions is that only international cards like Visa and Mastercard come with the freebies while 90 percent of all cards issued in Vietnam are domestic ATM and debit cards.

A director of a card services company explained that this is because banks receive funding for promotions from international card companies, and if they want to expand the discounts to their own ATM and debit cards, they have to pay themselves.

Le Thi Thong of East Asia Bank said increasing domestic card transactions can actually be more beneficial since merchants have to pay 3 to 3.5 percent of a transaction to banks compared to just 1 percent or less in case of domestic cards.

The banks also have to spend money on installing card readers at merchants’ establishments and other infrastructure though a large chunk of the transaction fees, known as interchange fees, they collect goes to international card companies.

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