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Ms. Trinh Thi Yen (27 years old, an administrator at a communications company in Hanoi) shared that she received information from the bank about the adjustment of the balance change fee via SMS, but she admitted that she “didn’t pay much attention and just skimmed through the notification.”
The reason for her indifference, as explained by Ms. Yen, is that for the past two years, she has been checking her balance changes through the bank’s app. This method is free of charge and allows her to easily track all previous transactions within just two minutes of logging into the app. Furthermore, she doesn’t want her financial information to be exposed when she is with friends, as the balance change notifications would appear on her screen. “With such advantages, there is no reason for me to choose to receive balance notifications via SMS and incur a fee,” she added.
Sharing a similar viewpoint, Ms. Nguyen Ha (32 years old, Nam Tu Liem, Hanoi), who runs an online beverage business, said, “I only check my balance changes through the bank’s app because it’s convenient and free of charge. Given the nature of my work in selling beverages, if I were to register for balance notifications via text messages, I would receive at least 100 SMS notifications per day on average, considering I sell about 100 orders per day that are paid via bank transfer. Not to mention the incoming balance change notifications when making transfers or other promotional messages. This would quickly fill up the storage capacity of my phone. Sometimes, when I want to look back at previous transactions, it feels quite tedious to search through the messages because the balance change notifications are mixed with other promotional texts.”
In reality, considering the disadvantages of registering for balance notifications via SMS, some banks have advised account holders to use the transaction inquiry service on their apps instead.
For instance, in its recent notification regarding the adjustment of SMS banking service fees, VPBank continued to recommend that customers use the balance change notification feature on its app for easier monitoring and absolute security. The bank stated that it has been providing this service on its app free of charge since 2020. Managing balance changes on the VPBank NEO app helps save costs for both customers and the bank.
VPBank also emphasized that sending balance changes via phone messages has many drawbacks, but the bank still needs to maintain this communication channel as some customers prefer to receive balance notifications via text messages.
VPBank further explained that the fee they charge is based on the fee announced by the telecommunications company and is only applicable to balance change notifications. Other types of messages, such as OTP codes, notifications of personal information changes upon request, payment reminders, etc., are paid for by the bank to telecommunications companies.
Regarding the SMS Banking service package officially applied from September 1, 2024, VPBank offers two payment options. The basic package applies to balance change notifications via SMS for transactions with a minimum value of 200,000 VND or more. The fee is calculated per payment account, per phone number, and per month, based on the number of messages received. The fee will range from 10,000 VND to 70,000 VND for the first 100 messages. For the 101st message and onwards, the fee is 100,000 VND plus 700 VND/message. However, the maximum fee for customers using this package is limited to 1,000,000 VND/month.
The upgraded package applies to transactions with a minimum value of 100,000 VND or more, with a fixed fee of 100,000 VND plus an additional fee based on the actual number of messages received, calculated similarly to the basic package at 700 VND/message from the 101st message onwards. Customers who frequently monitor their balance changes via text messages can choose this package with a maximum fee of 1.1 million VND.
For priority customers in the Diamond and Diamond Elite categories, VPBank continues to maintain the previous SMS Banking service fee, which is only 12,000 VND/month/account, and there is no limit to the number of messages.
In addition to VPBank, several other banks are also strongly encouraging customers to use digital banking channels instead of SMS banking services. Notably, these banks are offering waivers or reductions on all transfer fees and maintenance fees on digital banking channels.
According to experts, this not only brings optimal benefits to customers in terms of service experience but also helps banks reduce costs.
Statistics from the Vietnam Banks Association show that a small-scale bank can generate 15-20 million messages per month, while a large-scale bank can generate 50-80 million messages per month. The fees that banks have to pay to telecom companies can amount to thousands of billions of VND.
On the other hand, when customers check their balance changes through the bank’s app, they do not incur any fees and their information remains secure.
