Seventeen commercial banks cut the fees for interbank transfers of small sums worth less than VNĐ500,,000 from Tuesday. — Photo vietnamfinance.vn

HÀ NỘI — Seventeen out of 45 commercial banks slashed the fees for interbank transfers of small sums worth less than VNĐ500,000 (US$22) following the move of the National Payment Corporation of Việt Nam (NAPAS) to cut switching fees with an aim to promote cashless payments.

Among them, ten would offer zero charges for 24/7 interbank transfer services, namely Techcombank, MB, VietCapital Bank, VPBank, TPBank, OCB, Pvcombank, SeABank, CIMB and UOB.

BIDV, Kienlongbank, SaigonBank and CoopBank reduced their fees by up to 90 per cent to below VNĐ2,000 per transaction.

Vietcombank reduced the interbank fees from VNĐ7,700 to VNĐ5,500 for transactions conducted on VCB-iBanking, VCB-Mobile Banking, VCBPay and ATM booths.

Eximbank offered zero charges for interbank transfers on its internet banking and mobile banking services. For offline interbank transactions, Eximbank would reduce its fee to VNĐ8,800, compared to the old fee equivalent to 0.03 per cent of the transaction value, minimum VNĐ10,000 and maximum VN90,000.

Sacombank cut its fee from VNĐ12,000 to VNĐ10,000 and collects VNĐ2,500 per transaction conducted on Sacombank Pay app.

More commercial banks were expected to cut interbank transfer fees in the coming days.

NAPAS started to cut service fees on electronic switching for commercial banks from Tuesday in an effort to promote cashless payments.

Accordingly, switching fee was cut by VNĐ500 to VNĐ1,800 for each transaction.

It also offered zero charge for electronic payments for public services until the end of this year.

The company said that the exemptions and reductions on service fees would erase at least 15 per cent from its revenue this year, but the move was essential in the face of the novel coronavirus epidemic.

NAPAS was operating a switching system interconnected with more than 18,600 ATMs, 261,000 POS machines and 300 electronic payment companies and serving over 100 million cardholders of 48 domestic and international commercial banks operating in Việt Nam.

According to the State Bank of Việt Nam’s Payment Department, from January to the end of November 2019, there were 146 million transactions conducted via interbank electronic payment system, worth VNĐ87.5 quadrillion, up by 17.7 per cent and 32.49 per cent, respectively, over the same period of 2018. — VNS