In the modern time, credit cards are gradually becoming a popular means of payment for Vietnamese, this is an effective tool to help manage personal spending, not only convenient in payment, but also integrating many facilities and improving the people’s living quality.
Keeping up with customers’ increasing tastes and demands, domestic and foreign banks are constantly developing the card services by many new products integrating various features and attractive incentives...
The common trend of domestic banks is to link with major global card issuers as Visa, Master, JCB... in order to give customers a multi-functional card which is conveniently issued in Vietnam but and accepted for payments worldwide.
More potential on credit card business in Vietnam
Credit cards entered the market 20 years ago but have been developing in Vietnam recently. So far, most domestic commercial banks provided card products.
According to the General Statistics Office, in 2018, Vietnam had more than 70 million adults with the fastest growth in incomes and spendings in Southeast Asia. Consuming increase means the increase in needs for “spend first, pay later”; installment spendind; accumulated bonus purchase points, online shopping....
However, statistics from PwC said that in Vietnam, only 2% of customers having credit cards by end of 2018, 31% population have bank account and only 10% of daily payment transactions are on non-cash base.
This means that potential ground for credit card development is still large; this "fertile land" is also a competitive playground for many domestic and international banks.
With simple conditions to open card, diversified card types, low service fees, no requirement for too high incomes and many attractive incentives, domestic banks are considered "dangerous" competitors of foreign bank branches in Vietnam.
Recently, Kienlongbank, a domestic joint-stock commercial bank, has launched two credit card products: Kienlongbank Visa and Kienlongbank JCB of which there are 3 card types of Platinum, Gold, Classic, giving many options to customers for convenient back-up funds, promoting the expenditure management efficiency. Using Kienlongbank credit cards, customers enjoy many incentives and discounts up to 50%, buy first - pay later and interest-free up to 55 days.
Kienlongbank credit cardholders are fully exempted from card opening fee, first year annual fee, free cash withdrawal directly at Kienlongbank ATMs nationwide ... In addition, customers will have 0% interest instalments with many electronics supermarkets and shopping centers.
In particular, Kienlongbank JCB Platinum and Kienlongbank Visa Platinum cardholders also enjoy privileges of VIP Concierge services for medical, tourism, shopping, entertainment services and international travel insurance. The VIP Concierge privilege also provides Platinum cardholders with airport lounge services at over 70 airports in Japan, China, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam, 24-hour global hotline service for car booking, hotel, restaurant, golf course in Japan. Kienlongbank JCB card is free of charge until December 2019.
From 16 July 2019 to 11 January 2020, the Bank also launched an attractive promotion program "Using Kienlongbank Card to win a car" for Kienlongbank Visa and JCB credit cardholders.
Cardholders when shopping with value from VND 500,000 will receive a lucky draw number to participate in the lucky draw with attractive, high valued 200 gifts at total value of over VND1.26 billion; specifically 01 Special prize - Mazda 3 car; 05 First prizes - SH Mode motorbikes; 34 Second prizes - VND 5 million Vouchers to buy PNJ gold and 160 Lucky prizes - high class suitcases. The more cardholder spends, higher the chance of winning and getting all the prizes.
Safety, security are put on top priority
Along with the payment convenience, magnetic card in Vietnam over past few years has revealed some disadvantages, such as exposed personal information, easy to copy yet less facilities.
The fraudulent acts such as stealing card information to make counterfeits, stealing customer information through phishing, fake websites, frauds in online payment transactions, at ATM are more and more increasing.
As shared by Mr. Nguyen Hoang Minh, Deputy Director of Ho Chi Minh City State Bank of Vietnam, credit institutions must have safe and secured payment solutions to avoid risks of losing money in card using, card merchants do not process promptly complaints to ensure customer benefits.
In this regard, in 2016, the State Bank of Vietnam issued the Circular on handling losses of money in account, which requires credit institutions as card issuers quickly to determine the cause within 5 days, otherwise lost money must be refunded to the customer. This is considered a protection policy for both customers and the banks themselves.
Besides, the State Bank of Vietnam also requires credit institutions to convert magnetic cards to chip cards. Bby the end of 2019, there must be 30% of magnetic cards transferred to chip cards; 35% of existing ATMs need to be upgraded to accommodate chip cards.
In compliance with the provisions, also for customers’ benefits, Kienlongbank's international credit cards are having chip technology by modern EMV international standards - the highest security at present.
Ms. Tran Tuan Anh - Kienlongbank General Director said: “In addition to constantly developing features and incentives for credit card products, we also pay special attention to the information safety and security for customer. Therefore, Kienlongbank has been applying the most modern technologies to protect cardholder information and transaction security, so that each customer will feel secured when using Kienlongbank credit card”.
EMV standard (a smart payment card standard developed by the world's three largest card associations of Europay, Master Card and Visa) has open features to ensure the interface between EMV chip cards and compatible payment devices (being able to operate at the same level of the magnetic strip’s current bandwidth) regardless of the manufacturer and transaction location. So far, EMV has been proven to be safe, secured and accepted as a global standard for chip card payment operations.
In addition, Kienlongbank cardholders can also turn off/on the E-commerce feature of each credit card on Internet Banking and can have 24/24 support via hotline 19006929 for all domestic and foreign transactions.
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