05 January 2024
Three Vietnamese banks have changed their SMS notification policies to encourage customers to switch to digital banking apps, as SMS charges from telcos are too expensive.
Vietcombank will begin to charge customers VND 10,000 per phone number for 20 SMSs per month. After 20 SMS notifications, the bank will charge VND 700 per message, excluding VAT. Previously, Vietcombank charged a monthly flat fee of VND 10,000. Vietcombank will also stop sending SMS balance notifications for transactions below VND 50,000.
Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (ACB) has announced similar changes, now charging VND 15,000 per month for the first 20 messages and VND 700 for each message after that. Meanwhile, the Cooperative Bank of Vietnam (Co-opBank) raised its SMS fee to VND 16,500 per month (including VAT) and has stopped sending SMSs for transactions below VND 20,000.
The banks have encouraged customers to use their digital banking apps when notifying them of the fee changes, saying that the apps offer notifications at no extra charge. This follows Sacombank, VPBank and VietinBank adjusting their fees in September 2023.
The Vietnam Banking Association has long complained that many banks are losing money from SMS banking services. Nguyen Quoc Hung, general secretary of the Vietnam Banking Association, has said that banks pay hundreds of billions of đồng per month in telecoms service fees, in large part because telcos charge banks three times more per SMS than consumer SMSs.
