By Thanh Huong - The Saigon Times Daily
HCMC - Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, or Agribank, on Tuesday started recruiting JCB credit card merchants in Vietnam based on an agreement signed last year between the bank and JCB International (JCBI), an arm of Japan’s major credit card brand JCB.
Agribank will phase in JCB card acceptance for purchases at Agribank merchants and cash withdrawals through the Agribank ATM network. The bank targets to have completed acquiring the operation of JCB card acceptance at all of its existing 4,000 merchants and 1,700 ATMs by the end of this year, the two parties said in a joint statement.
Pham Thanh Tan, CEO of Agribank, said the cooperation between Agribank and JCB was aimed at developing the credit card market and boosting non-cash payment in the country.
For Agribank, the alliance with JCBI will bring the bank’s merchants more payment options and sales opportunities generated by the growing JCB card-member base in Asia, he said.
“Agribank is pleased to have this opportunity to provide a merchant service channel to JCB which will lead to further expansion of the card and payment market in Vietnam,” he is quoted as saying in the statement.
The vast majority of JCB’s card holders are from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China with many of them being investors and tourists frequenting Vietnam as well.
Tamio Takakura, chairman and CEO of JCBI, said Vietnam was one of the key target markets for JCB because of its strong growth and potential scale.