ATM withdrawal in Tet holiday surges four times

HANOI – The cash volume withdrawn from Automated Teller Machines (ATM) systems of local banks in January is estimated to hit some VND60 trillion, four times higher than other previous months, said Smartlink Card Services Joint Stock Co.

The upsurge is attributed to strong cash demand during the Lunar New Year holiday, or Tet, said Smartlink, which operates the payment clearing system connecting 35 member lenders with airlines, telecom and large enterprises, switching systems and international card organizations at home.

The firm said the demand for cash withdrawal via ATM had sharply surged during the last days of the lunar year, with nearly VND300 billion a day transferred via the switching system connecting 35 banks. This figure is four times higher than normal days last year, noted Smarlink.

“The total cash amount transferred among banks via the system of ATMs under the clearing mode of the whole market in 2011 is over VND40 trillion as recorded by Smartlink’s system,” reported the company’s general director Nguyen Tu Anh.

In the first 11 months of last year, local lenders cleared among one another some VND109 billion a day on average and in December the same year, the volume was up roughly 40% to VND143 billion a day. This figure in the first half of this month rose to VND175 billion.

Especially, the peak time of this month lasting from January 9 to 18 witnessed on average more than VND200 billion a day paid between member lenders. During the first days of the two weeks close to the Lunar New Year holiday, these banks paid each other over VND300 billion every day, or an estimated VND5.4 trillion for the whole month.

The payment value transferred among banks is estimated to account for only 10% of the cash volume supplied to ATMs in the whole country, meaning the cash volume from ATM services is approximately VND60 trillion this month.