Customers use VCB Digibank services on smartphones. Photo: Tran Viet/VNA

Accordingly, Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam ( Vietcombank ) has just notified customers about adjusting the service fee schedule for notifying balance changes via SMS from January 1, 2024.

Accordingly, the maintenance fee for the proactive SMS service will be calculated based on the number of messages generated in a month instead of the current fixed fee of VND 10,000/month/phone number. This is a service to receive notifications of changes in account balances, international card spending transactions, loan principal and interest repayment schedules, etc. via SMS messages.

From January 1, 2024, Vietcombank will apply a fee of VND 10,000/month/phone number if the number of messages is less than 20 messages/month/phone number. For more than 20 messages/month/phone number, Vietcombank will charge a fee based on the actual number of messages generated in the month at a fee of VND 700/message. These fees do not include VAT.

A notable new point for Vietcombank customers is that the bank will officially stop sending balance fluctuation messages for transactions with a value of less than 50,000 VND.

In a notice sent to customers, Vietcombank said that if they are using proactive SMS and do not need to maintain the service, customers can compose a message with the syntax VCB CD HUY and send to 6167 and download the VCB Digibank application to switch to receiving balance change notifications via the application for free.

Notably, Vietcombank said that from January 1, 2024 to March 31, 2024, Vietcombank will waive 1 month of proactive SMS message receiving service for customers who do not need to continue maintaining and cancel the service.

Each customer is exempted from the service fee only once in the month of service cancellation (in case the customer registers to use the proactive SMS service again at any time, Vietcombank will charge the fee according to the fee schedule in effect at the time the customer successfully registers again).

Not only Vietcombank, Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank ( ACB ) from January 1, 2024 also changed the fee calculation mechanism and SMS Banking fee collection level for individual and corporate customers. Accordingly, the lowest fee is 15,000 VND/month (including VAT) for the number of SMS messages from 20 messages or less. The number of SMS messages above 20 messages will be 15,000 VND plus 700 VND/message, calculated from the 21st message onwards, calculated per month/subscriber/customer. Notification of balance changes will only be sent via SMS for transactions of 50,000 VND or more.

However, to avoid fees and be safer, ACB encourages customers to use the notification feature via the ACB ONE digital banking application.

Similarly, from January 1, 2024, the Co-opBank will also adjust the SMS Banking service fee for individual customers to VND 16,500/customer/month (including VAT). At the same time, it will stop sending messages notifying balance changes for transactions less than VND 20,000.

Previously, many banks changed the way they calculated the SMS balance notification service fee according to the ladder or the actual number of SMS used, and also changed the time of SMS Banking fee collection.

For example, at Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade ( VietinBank ), the service fee calculation cycle is calculated from the first day to the last day of the month and the fee collection time will change from the beginning of the period to the end of the period. If the number of SMS balance fluctuations is 14 SMS or less, VietinBank will apply the current fixed fee of VND 11,000 (including VAT). If the number of SMS balance fluctuations is 15 messages or more, the SMS Banking fee per message is VND 880/message (including VAT).

At Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Sacombank), customers who generate less than 30 SMS messages will be charged a fee of VND15,000/month/phone number. If there are more than 30 messages, Sacombank will charge a fee of VND500/message based on the number of messages and the maximum fee is VND500,000/month/phone number (excluding VAT).

At Vietnam Prosperity Joint Stock Commercial Bank (VPBank), the fee is also calculated based on the number of messages received per month instead of the fixed 12,000 VND/account number/subscriber as before.

Specifically, the fee for the number of messages from 0 - 15 messages/account/1 phone number is 10,000 VND/month; from 15 - 30 messages is 20,000 VND/month; from 31 - 50 messages is 30,000 VND/month; from 51 - 100 messages is 50,000 VND/month and from 101 messages or more is 70,000 VND/month. This fee does not include VAT. In addition, transactions with a value of less than 100,000 VND (minimum transaction amount) will not receive balance change notifications on the phone but will receive them directly via the app.

According to Dr. Nguyen Quoc Hung, General Secretary of the Vietnam Banking Association, in the past, banks often used banking service messages to notify customers of balance changes. Banking service message fees are currently 3 times higher than normal message fees. After many requests to telecommunications networks to reduce fees to no avail, many banks have switched to notifying balances via banking apps.

In addition, the move to increase SMS Banking also aims to encourage customers to switch to receiving free notifications on banking applications. In addition to free service, the advantage of receiving notifications on the application introduced by banks is safety, limiting the situation of fake banking messages (SMS Brand name).

VNA