Credit card issuance in Vietnam heats up

The race to issue credit cards among local and foreign joint stock commercial banks is heating up, the online newspaper Dau Tu (Investment) reported January 18.

Asian joint stock commercial bank (ACB) has been the first lender in Vietnam to issue Visa Platinum Cards on the EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa) standards, the local media cited, adding that the card has an embedded chip to store cardholder’s information in an encrypted format, thereby providing the highest level of security to the cardholders.

Vietcombank, which has been well-known as the biggest VISA card issuer in Vietnam, said it will continue boost up card issuance, the online newspaper added without giving specific details.

The local media also cited Citibank Vietnam as examples of foreign banks’ interest in domestic credit card issuance. This foreign lender has recently issued Citibank PremierMiles, the first travel card in Vietnam that is tied to the biggest international airlines to offer the biggest values for frequent flyers.

Citibank is the top card issuer in the world with 16 million card accounts in circulation, and Vietnam is the 8th market in Asia where Citibank has launched the card, said Mr. Surath Chatterjee, regional head – credit cards and personal loans, Citibank Asia-Pacific.

“We will continue to take advantage of regional and global resources to launch the best products and services. Vietnam is a top – prioritized market where Citibank plans to invest in new products”, he added.

Competition in the international card market is getting more and more intense, said an ACB’s representative.

“In the domestic market, it would be non-sense to invest in ATM system and issue ATM cards for cash withdrawals only. The banks issue cards mainly for payment purposes, not for cash withdrawals. Otherwise, they would not be able to make profit due to high fixed costs”, he said.

As of the end of 2010, Vietnam has issued 28.5million cards including 400,000 international credit cards nationwide. – Stoxplus.com

Tags: credit card