Non-cash payment: many obstacles

	Reduced cash payment: Target is not easy to reach
	By the time of non-cash payment
	"Shake hands" to push back cash in payments

Illustrated Photo

Mainly concentrated in big cities

According to the Scheme, the payment via banks will be conducted for public services including taxes, electricity, water, tuition fees, hospital fees and social security programs. The overall objective of the Scheme is to promote payment for public services and social security programs via banks, thereby contributing to the development of e-Government, improving the accessibility to banking services for the economy and developing non-cash payments. However, in spite of the specific details of the Scheme, there are still some shortcomings in the payment for public services via banks.

Sharing the results of the deployment of non-cash payment, Pham Tien Dung, Director General of the Payment Department, State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), said that currently 50 banks have signed agreements on electronic tax collection with tax agencies and Customs units in 63 provinces, cities and 768 districts across the country; 26 banks have signed agreements on electricity fees with electricity providers across the country, 26 banks have cooperated to collect water fees in more than 20 provinces and 11 banks have cooperated to collect tuition fees, mainly in universities. In addition, 6 banks have cooperated to collect hospital fees in big hospitals such as Bach Mai Hospital, Cho Ray Hospital, and 5 banks have cooperated to pay pensions and social insurance allowances.

However, according to Mr. Pham Tien Dung, payment for public services via banks has not been appreciated, especially in remote areas. The connection between banks and public service providers still faces difficulties and slow deployment. In addition, information exchange and sharing and data export related to the payments for public service fees are limited.

In this regard, Nguyen Kim Anh, Deputy Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam, emphasized that actually the payment via banks for public services was still modest, the scope of implementation was mainly focused on customers who are organizations, enterprises or in big cities and provinces with developed economic conditions.

According to Pham Tien Dung, this situation is due to the inappropriate policies and infrastructure for payment services of banks. Accordingly, the network of banks providing payment services is unevenly distributed, especially, information technology infrastructure and payment in rural areas and remote areas are not good. The technical compatibility between banks and public service providers such as database standardization, technology infrastructure is limited. In addition, a number of other objective reasons also contributed to the slow deployment of non-cash payment, which are the convenience and habit of using cash by people, and the unwilling psychology to change the payment method of some customers. "Not to mention, in some cases, banks do not receive payment service fees, so they are not encouraged to deploy and develop the payment services. At the same time, in some cases when customers must pay fees for payment via banks, this is also a barrier for customers that prefer to use cash payments," said Pham Tien Dung.

Promptly synchronize the infrastructures

From the view of enterprises, Nguyen Quoc Dung, Head of the Business Division of Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) said that in the period 2015-2017, the revenue of electricity fees via banks and intermediary organizations increased sharply from 64.35% in 2015 to 83.57% in 2017. The revenue at counters and via retailing services sharply decreased. However, the EVN representative also said that EVN also encountered some difficulties in boosting the collection of electricity fees via banks and intermediary organizations such as: When abolishing the collection service for electricity at the user’s home, the electricity users must go to the collection points. In rural areas, there are few bank transaction points so the payment via banks is quite difficult. At the same time, bank counters operate during administrative hours, coinciding with working hours of electricity users, and transactions at banks takes a lot of time.

Regarding difficulties in paying pension and social insurance allowances via banks, Mr. Pham Thanh Du, Deputy Director of Finance and Accounting Department of Viet Nam Social Insurance shared that the number of beneficiaries of monthly pension and social insurance allowances via ATM cards accounted for a small proportion of total beneficiaries due to their habit of using cash, and the non-cash payment method not being widespread over the country. By 2017, about 15% of the total amount were paid through ATM accounts and about 21% of the total amount were paid through ATM accounts in February 2018, but the distribution rate between provinces and cities is equal, mainly in big cities. The number of ATMs is not significant, especially in remote areas. The management of beneficiaries is also a difficulty such as; failure to grasp information of the beneficiaries, failure to report the number of beneficiaries in a timely fashion, difficulty in recovering the paid amounts, and difficulty in using ATM cards for old and weak people.

In order to overcome the problems and boost the payment via banking system for public services, Mr. Pham Tien Dung has proposed to improve the legal framework and policies for payment via banks and further ensure security in the payments. "In addition, it is necessary to deploy more advanced and modern forms of payment via banks in line with the payment characteristics of each type of public service, while expanding cooperation between public service providers and banks and payment service providers, and accelerating the connection and exchange of data and information between public service-providers and banks," Pham Tien Dung proposed.

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From the view of electronic payment infrastructure providers for banks, payment intermediaries and public administration units, Mr. Nguyen Dang Hung, Deputy General Director of the National Payment Corporation of Vietnam (NAPAS) noted that," The Government and competent authorities should issue incentive policies to encourage and support for the implementation of public services level 4, and synchronize the infrastructures, information technology system for centralized data management. In addition, the Government and competent authorities should clarify the responsibilities and obligations of focal points in public service units and cooperate with NAPAS and banks to promote the non-cash payment."