Vietnam’s mobile banks hit 400 units

In an effort to reach out to farmers in remote parts of Vietnam, more than 240 mobile banking cars were put into service to help bring banking services to people in rural areas.

The Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and the Bank for Development and Investment held a ceremony on March 30 to officially receive the cars, which were financed under the World Bank’s 2nd Rural Finance Project, and then distribute them to provincial and district bank branches all over the country.

"A country’s banking system is like its blood system. For the country to function at its peak and to include the poor and the disadvantaged, basic banking services must reach out to the villages and hamlets, to the farmers and small businesses in remote areas – they are the core of Vietnam’s society," said Klaus Rohland, director of the World Bank in Vietnam, from Hanoi.

Mobile banking cars were first introduced on a large scale in Vietnam in 2000 and 2001 when 159 mobile banking cars were provided through the 1st Rural Finance project.

Since then, each mobile banking car visits an average of 62 remote locations a month, adding around 2,000 new savings accounts, worth 19 billion Vietnam dong (VND), and nearly 2,000 new loans, worth VND15 billion; and collecting more than VND10 billion in loan payments a month.

Already, these mobile banking operations have helped rural households, including ethnic minority households, to maintain and improve their livelihoods through increasing their access to banking services.