A payment transaction conducted via QR code. Vietnam is promoting cashless payments as a measure to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo vietnamnet.vn)

Specifically, NAPAS will reduce interbank fund transfer fees by half, from currently 1,800 VND to 900 VND, for transactions of sums worth from 500,001 VND (about 21 USD) to 2 million VND each, starting from March 25 to the end of December 31.

This move will enable local banks to cut the fees for interbank fund transfer for customers, NAPAS said.

The State Bank of Vietnam has asked commercial banks and branches of foreign banks to reduce the fees for interbank fund transfers by at least 900 VND per transaction and encouraged to offer bigger reductions.

The central bank has also allowed the National Credit Information Centre of Vietnam (CIC) to reduce the fees on local banks for using credit information, from March 1 to the end of this year.

On February 25, NAPAS cut the fee for electronic switching from 1,800 VND to 500 VND per transaction for sums worth 500,000 VND or less.

To date, 39 out of 45 member banks of NAPAS cut fees for customers by 90 percent and even some offered zero charges for fast interbank fund transfers, following the NAPAS’s move in February.

Promoting cashless payment was highlighted as one of important measures to remove difficulties for business and production amid the outbreak of the COVID-19.

A survey by IDG Vietnam, a member of the International Data Group, in 2019 revealed that cash payments still account for 79 percent in Vietnam.

Under the cashless payment development project for 2016-20, Vietnam targeted that cash would account for 10 percent of the total money in circulation by the end of 2020.

Recently, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc asked the central bank to submit a pilot project about mobile money./. VNA

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