With the four-day Tet holiday beginning on January 22, workers are mobbing ATM stations to withdraw their wages and Tet bonuses, said a report at VietNamNet.com.
In some areas where permanently installed ATMs have been unable to keep up with demand, banks have sent ATM trucks to provide access to cash. Nguyen Tan Dinh, deputy head of the Ho Chi Minh City Export Processing Zones and Industrial Parks Authority, said that ATM trucks had been sent to a number of industrial parks to meet demand from workers.
The Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) has doubled the numbers of money transport vehicles and staff to ensure that its 1626 ATMs have enough cash on hand. However, congestion has still been an issue as cardholders from other banks have converged on Vietcombank ATMs. Many of these customers are normally served by smaller banks, which have struggled with liquidity problems brought on by the pre-holiday cash withdrawals.
According to Vietnam’s central bank, the number of ATMs in the country has increased significantly in recent years. Currently 12,811 machines serve a population of about 86 million, with 40 million — or nearly 35 percent — of Vietnamese citizens holding an ATM card.
