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./.
