Vietinbank demands debt payment via SMS

The Vietnam Commercial Joint Stock Bank for Industry and Trade, or Vietinbank, Thursday began to demand debt payment via SMS messages.

This new method, which has been operational merely for individual customers since last year, will send SMS messages to registered customers of the bank to remind them of outstanding loans seven days before the due date.

This is voluntary as a message costs VND1,650 from customer’s phone account and will be sent during 7:00am to 11:00pm every day, the bank informed, adding its customers (debtors) can register for as many as five phone numbers to receive the debt-reminding messages.

VietinBank said this would help reduce its bad and late-paying debts as well as building the good habit of clearing debt on time.

A similar service was also launched by the Saigon – Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank in early July, newswire VnExpress reported.

Traditionally, banks will send their reminding letters and documents to their individual customers’ houses or enterprise-borrowers’ offices before the loans are due.

“The task is time-consuming and customers may clear their debts late in case the reminding documents are lost on their way,” VnExpress quoted a bank official as saying. – Tuoitre

Tags: Vietinbank, Vietnam banking industry, Vietnam finance, Vietnam financial