If the account is not active or the balance is kept too low, a series of banks will charge management fees to limit "winter- sleeping" accounts.
Many banks are applying account management fees or adjusting fee collection policies for individual customers. The common fee ranges from about 5,000 - 22,000 VND/month if the account does not meet the free conditions (minimum balance, regular transactions...).
For example, the Export-Import Bank of Vietnam (Eximbank) has just applied a new fee schedule from December 1, accordingly collecting a fee of VND 11,000 per month (including VAT) for accounts with an average monthly balance of less than VND 500,000. Previously, the management fee of this unit was 300,000 VND/month.
BIDV applies a payment account management fee of VND 5,000/month if the average balance is under VND 2 million and free when the average balance is VND 10 million or more. If the customer closes an account as requested, the fee will be 50,000 VND.
Worried about receiving a series of information about collecting account management fees, Ms. Bui Thu Phuong (Hai An, Hai Phong) said: "At the time of the pandemic, I worked online for some time in many places, so I opened an online account to receive salary, and had an account at some banks. When I quit my job, I only deleted my phone application. Even though a credit card has not been opened by any bank, if the management fee is attributed to bad debt, it is not known whether you are among the highest group of users or not? ".
Ms. Phuong said that she quickly went to banks to close her account to avoid unnecessary risks.
Similarly, Mr. Nguyen Quang Diep (My Dinh, Hanoi) also chose the option of closing/cancelling his "winter- sleeping" account before incurring expenses. Mr. Diep said: "If any account is no longer used, I go to the bank branch to pay, and there is a fee to do it, but the fee will depend on the bank".
Sharing with Lao Dong, Associate Professor, Dr. Dang Ngoc Duc - Director of the Institute of Financial Technology, Dai Nam University - acknowledged that many "bedrooming" accounts have been taken advantage of by scammers to transfer money to erase traces. The subjects even used that account number to conduct transactions that the account owner did not know.
In case the credit card is opened without a need to use it, initially it was only for the target of bank staff, but many scammers have "rented the right to use" it, or bought bribes to pay for bank staff to open a credit card with a "cube" of 5-7% of the card limit.
After that, the subject used the charter cards to pay or withdraw money. In the first few months, the scammers only paid the minimum balance, after appropriating a large amount of money, they would "source" and not return it to commercial banks (CMs).
"During the recent Lunar New Year, I participated in supporting a commercial bank that ran data analysis, discovered hundreds of credit card accounts for fraudulent transactions and evasion, and at the same time limited the loss of more than 32 billion VND" - Associate Professor, Dr. Dang Ngoc Duc shared.
According to Mr. Duc, Vietnamese people love their relatives so they are willing to open an account, even a credit card account as a support for their children and grandchildren. On the other hand, many people also "ease" many risks when opening an account, including having to pay account management fees and the requirement to increase the minimum balance to get free. Some people have many accounts or many types of cards, considering this as an image of "old age" or "old age".
