According to Ho Chi Minh branch of State Bank, the total volume of issued ATM card reached 1,1 million cards in the area in year 2008, equivalent to number issued in 2007. The transaction amount by ATM cards reached 69,000 billion VND, increased 32% compare with 2007. The additional volume are 4,2 Million ATM cards and 2.257 ATMs.

The end of 2008, there are about 146.320 civil officer who accept receiving their salary through the bank account, take 92,9%, and mainly use ATM card for cash withdrawal. The expenses of international cardholders are 640 million USD at Vietcombank Merchants, increase 40% compare with last year. The purchase is 172 billion VND through POS or Internet by East Asia bank (DongA bank) multi-purpose payment card, increase 100% compare with last year; the payment through East Asia Bank ATM is 14.000 billion VND, increase 30%.

To handle problems which may occur in New Year festival when the number of customers do withdraw money unexpected surge at ATM systems, There are several popular solutions for this, one of it is using mobile ATM car, or sending more staff working 24/24 to support and fix problems if any.

The hot ATM points of all banks, locations often have many people do withdraw money,There are standby Mobile ATM cars to avoid ATM overloaded. Especially Dong A Bank also put into operation 2 mobile ATM vehicles. Each Dong A ATM vehicle equipped with 4 ATMs which are connected via a wireless network by EVN Telecom system. Those two vehicles will be served primarily in the big industrial in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, at the time all workers do withdraw from ATMs to travel to their home in New Year festival.

According to plan, from the beginning of next week, the cash withdrawal transactions on the ATM systems of all banks will be strongly increased. In the case of the ATM is overloaded, even with the ATM of the bank in the inter-bank network , cardholders should go to the bank where they open ATM account to withdraw money (banks will open till 25th January 2009).

(www.vnba.org.vn)