On April 16, 2020, the National Payment Corporation of Vietnam (NAPAS) and the Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) announced a fee reduction programme for Covid-19 impacted businesses providing transportation services.
From April 10, 2020 through December 31, 2020, NAPAS is offering free transactions and coordinating with Vietcombank to reduce up to 35 percents of fees for both of the electronic payment portal and the cash collection and payment services.
Accordingly, businesses providing air and rail transportation services including Vietnam Airlines, Vietjet Air, Bamboo Airways and Vietnam Railways, which pay fees through the NAPAS electronic payment portal are eligible for exemptions or reduction of fees. This is NAPAS's third service fee reduction program in 2020, demonstrating its efforts and commitment to continue to share the difficulties with businesses.
NAPAS acts as the operator of the national financial switching system, handling financial switching transactions for the ATM/POS system, the 24/7 inter-bank quick money transfers throughout the territory of Vietnam. In addition, they also provide the electronic payment portal services connecting the systems of the commercial banks and large enterprises operating in the fields of aviation, railway, retail, tourism, services, etc.
In light of the complicated developments of the Covid-19 pandemic, the transportation market in March 2020 is estimated to serve only 334.4 million turns of passengers, a decrease by 8.8% against the previous month and was at 78.6% over the same period in 2019; a rotation of 14.8 billion turns of passengers, a decrease by 15.1% over the previous month and was at 75% over the same period of 2019, of which transportation to and from overseas only reached 40% compared to the previous month. Especially, transportation, together with hospitality, F&B services, are expected to decline significantly from April 2020, with the Prime Minister's Directive No. 16/CT-TTg dated March 31, 2020 on the implementation of urgent measures for the prevention and control of the Covid-19 pandemic coming into play, requiring the entire population to comply with the social distancing measures.
According to NAPAS, the Covid-19 pandemic has made a major and direct impact on the transportation activities, of which the passenger transport has been heavily affected with a year-on-year drop of 22.8 percents in March 2020 alone; and turnover decreased by 25% compared to the same period in 2019, of which the railway industry decreased by more than 50% and the aviation decreased by 29% (source: General Statistics Office). In order to support the transportation businesses to mitigate the difficulties, NAPAS has rolled out a fee reduction programme and is committed to further fulfilling its corporate responsibilities for the community and the people, with a view to sharing the difficulties with the Government and the businesses.
In order to support their customers in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, NAPAS and the commercial banks have jointly implemented two consecutive switching fee reduction programs in 2020, namely: (i) free transactions for public services and reducing up to 72% of the inter-bank money transfer service fees for transactions of VND 500,000 or less during the time from February 25 to December 31, 2020; (ii) reducing up to 50% of the inter-bank money transfer service fees for transactions of over VND 500,000 up to VND 2,000,000 during the time from March 25 to December 31, 2020.
So far, 100% of the banks in NAPAS network have rolled out programs of fee reduction/exemption for the 24/7 inter-bank quick money transfer services, thereby encouraging their customers to use electronic payment facilities, non-cash payments, in order to adapt to the social distancing requirements, limiting contact, mitigating the impacts of Covid-19 on people’s health, while maintaining the economic growth.
VA