A memorandum of understanding will be signed on Wednesday between the nation’s two biggest card unions, Smartlink Card Services Joint Stock Company (Smartlink) and Vietnam National Financial Switching Joint Stock Co. (Banknetvn), to merge the former into the latter. According to a source from the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), the agreement marks the first step of merging three card unions on... 

* SBV to launch card switching center by year-end Bank cards are mainly used for cash withdrawal in the country, with the total withdrawn money accounting for 82% of the total transaction value conducted via the ATM system, said the Vietnam Bank Card Association. The association stated bank cards are not used as an efficient non-cash payment instrument. Instead, banks must store a huge sum of cash... 

The central bank is trying to increase the number of bank account users to 35-40% of the country’s total population in 2015, doubling the present proportion of 20%, said head of the Payment Department of the central bank. Bui Quang Tien told a press meeting in Hanoi on Monday that the plan was part of the project by the central bank to speed up the development of non-cash payment services at home... 

The central bank has mapped out a plan to merge three local card networks to establish a unified card switching center. Smartlink Card Services and Vina Brilliant Card (VNBC) companies will no longer provide card switching services, which will be transferred to Vietnam National Financial Switching Joint Stock Company, better know as BanknetVN, a source told the Daily. The central bank has submitted... 

Japan-based NTT Data Group has announced it will invest in local VietUnion Online Services Corporation in a bid to further penetrate the electronic payment system market in Vietnam. NTT Data Group will hold a 40% stake in VietUnion to become the second biggest investor after Saigon Invest Group. With its capital contribution and technical support, VietUnion is expected to dominate the electronic payment... 

The total value of card transactions in the January-September period amounted to nearly VND29 trillion at home, up 52% year-on-year, reported Smartlink Card Services Joint Stock Co. Smartlink is in charge of managing 95% of the total number of Automated Teller Machines (ATM) and Points of Sale (POS) in the local market. Transaction value of ATM and POS handled among member banks was VND13.343 trillion... 

Asia Commercial Bank (ACB) has launched a new service that allows its cardholders to transfer money to other banks through automatic teller machines (ATMs), becoming the first institution in the nation to make this kind of transfer possible. This is the outcome of a cooperation deal between ACB and Smartlink Card Services Joint Stock Company that runs the Smartlink card network with 27 bank members. This... 

The State Bank of Vietnam has extended the deadline until the end of next year for bank card issuers to change their bank identification number (BIN). The deadline was June 30 this year. The extension was granted after commercial banks asked the central bank said millions of cards had not had their BIN changed. The BIN consists of a single-digit major industry identifier, a six-digit issuer identification... 

Vietnamese consumers’ confidence is tumbling due to macroeconomic challenges and rising inflation, according to Nielsen Vietnam’s survey on the first half of 2011 announced on Friday. This decline in confidence is also seen with the country’s senior business leaders who participated in Nielsen’s Vietnam Business Barometer survey – an online survey designed to gauge Vietnam’s business... 

Several banks in HCMC are trialing the service of money transfer via automated teller machines (ATMs), and the service will be widely available at all banks between 2013 and 2015, said the central bank’s HCMC Branch. Nguyen Van Dung, deputy director the State Bank of Vietnam’s HCMC Branch, told a seminar on Tuesday that cardholders would not have to perform the money transfer service at banks’...