VietNamNet Bridge – Many of the 12 commercial banks licensed to hold properties in trust still have not begun providing services. Meanwhile, the banks willing to provide the services are not allowed to do this.

A senior executive of Vietcombank said the bank has not started the business yet. In order to provide the services of holding gold under trust, the bank would have to reconsider the storehouse conditions to be sure about the safety. Therefore, the bank still cannot say when it can begin providing the services.

The director of a BIDV’s branch in HCM City said his branch is not allowed to provide the services because of the poor material facilities. VietinBank has been providing the services, but it only takes orders at the branches’ head offices, not at the transaction points. The clients of the bank have to pay the service fee of VND2,000 for every 0.1 tael of gold per month, while the minimum feel level is VND30,000.

Of the 7 joint stock banks allowed to hold gold in trust, only three banks, namely Tien Phong Bank, Lien Viet Post Bank and ACB have been providing the services. The other four, including An Binh, Ban Viet, Bao Viet and Military Banks have not provided the services to individual clients.

Meanwhile, the commercial banks, which reportedly had the big amounts of mobilized capital in gold in the past, such as Dong A, Eximbank, Sacombank and Viet A, still have not been licensed.

In fact, the banks still keep the gold trusted by the clients in the past. However, they are not allowed to accept more orders.

According to Nguyen Hoang Minh, Deputy Director of the HCM City Branch of the State Bank of Vietnam, the 12 banks include 5 ones where the state holds the controlling stakes, namely, Vietcombank, Vietibank, BIDV, Agribank and MHB.

The majority of the banks did not have to ask for the new licensing, because their business fields written down in the operation licenses have included the services of managing, preserving the assets under trust already.

Of the 12 banks, only ACB has just got the license. Minh said many other banks have also asked for the permission to provide the services, including Sacombank, Eximbank and Viet A.

Phan Huy Khang, Sacombank’s General Director, confirmed that the bank has asked for the permission to provide the services to the HCM City branch of the State Bank, which would forward the application to the central bank after some consideration.

Do Minh Toan, General Director of ACB, said the bank’s clients, who deposited in gold at the bank in the past, don’t want to get gold back, though the State Bank has banned the gold depositing. They have decided to leave the gold at the bank, and accepting to pay fee for the service.

A senior official of the HCM City branch of the State Bank of Vietnam has confirmed that the amount of gold kept at commercial banks under the property holding service is “relatively big,” though he declined to give the exact figure.

Khang of Sacombank said though the service fee is modest, banks still want to provide the services because they would have the opportunities to provide other services (deposits, remittance…) to the clients as well. This would allow the banks to obtain more customers.

TBKTSG