Bank employees' nightmares near Tet

As the Lunar New Year 2024 approaches, bank employees are asked to exchange money by friends, acquaintances, and even customers.

The demand for new money is often common in denominations of 50,000 VND, 100,000 VND and 200,000 VND. In addition, new money in denominations of 5,000 VND, 10,000 VND and 20,000 VND is also popular for the purpose of visiting temples and pagodas at the beginning of the year.

Meanwhile, since 2020, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has restricted the issuance of new money to banks, especially notes with denominations of 10,000-50,000 VND. In 2021, this agency also directed the SBV Transaction Office to absolutely not exchange new money for businesses, individuals, including SBV officials.

The State Bank's local branches are also required to proactively balance and develop cash collection and disbursement plans, prioritizing the disbursement of circulating money with denominations of VND 10,000 or less to meet payment needs in the economy , replenish ATM funds, pay salaries, pay social insurance, and pay for supermarkets and shopping centers.

Limited supply, while the situation of "asking" for new money exchange continues, this time is a "nightmare" for many bank employees as they always have to find ways to politely refuse, not to offend customers or relatives.

In recent years, the State Bank has restricted the provision of new money to banks.

Mr. Duc Anh, an employee at a branch of a state-owned commercial bank, shared that in previous years, the amount of new money was still abundant. One year, he was assigned to stay at the office all night to look after the change when "trucks poured in but had not yet distributed it to the departments and offices."

However, in 2024, it is likely that each person will be able to exchange a few million dong, which is only enough to serve personal needs.

"So at this time, I receive many calls and messages asking me to exchange money, but I have to politely refuse," said Duc Anh.

However, the service of exchanging small change and new money is still flourishing on the internet with countless groups specializing in gathering people to provide this service. The exchange fee ranges from 2-3% of the total value, even up to 5%.

Even bank employees have to resort to money exchange services.

Hoai Anh, a credit officer in the Corporate Customer Department at a large private commercial bank in Hanoi , said that she and her colleagues in the department had to "collect orders" to exchange small bills from outside services with a fee of 2%. The total amount of money that people needed to exchange was nearly 400 million VND.

“If we only exchange small change for a few individuals in the office, the need is only a few tens of millions of dong. But each person receives money to exchange for friends and family members, so we have to exchange so much. The 2% fee is cheap because we are regular customers,” Hoai Anh shared.

However, some bank employees still hope to be able to exchange money, with the amount of tens of millions of dong per person.

Speaking to PV. VietNamNet, an employee working at the headquarters of a Big4 commercial joint stock bank said that she had agreed to exchange new money for an acquaintance, with an amount of up to 40 million VND. However, whether there is new money to exchange or not is... uncertain.

Hoai Anh, a credit officer, warns that when using currency exchange services, one must be extremely careful to avoid being scammed and losing money. Because people who need to exchange money are always required to pay a deposit, if they are not familiar with the service, it is easy to be scammed and lose their deposit.

“In fact, scams have happened before, so if you have to exchange money, you should only exchange it with someone you know. But that could also be the reason why people working in banking like me are always bothered during this time,” she said.

Source: vietnamnet

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