State Treasury promotes cashless payment

Professional activities at Dong Nai State Treasury. Photo: Thuy Linh

Cash transactions drop rapidly

In order to promote administrative reform, and modernization toward digital Government, the State Treasury has approved a Scheme on Cashless Payment Promotion in Vietnam for the 2021-2025 period, with the orientation that there are no more cash transactions arise at the State Treasury and reduce to the minimum rate of cash transactions.

According to Mr. Nguyen Quang Tuan, Director of Bac Giang State Treasury, the State Treasury has actively coordinated with the State Bank and commercial banks in the area to establish and facilitate people, enterprises, and beneficiaries of the state budget in non-cash payments, as well as cash transactions at commercial banks for state revenues collection and expenditures and other transactions.

Thanks to drastic direction and communication, the volume of cash transactions at the headquarters of the State Treasury Bac Giang has decreased compared to 2021 (the amount of cash is reduced by 82%, equivalent to a decrease of VND 681 billion in ten months of 2022). State revenue collection in cash at the State Treasury units under the Bac Giang State Treasury is VND28 billion, dropping VND103 billion compared to 2021. Notably, up to this point, at Bac Giang State Treasury and some district State Treasuries have not had any cash transactions.

At Ba Ria - Vung Tau State Treasury, as of October 2022, there are 960 out of 966 units using the state budget throughout the province that have made salaries payments for individuals via personal accounts (except for those belonging to the list of state secrets which will be paid in an appropriate form).

In addition, the Ba Ria-Vung Tau State Treasury actively disseminated and encouraged units to limit cash withdrawals at the State Treasury headquarters, especially for small spending accounts.

When there is a need to use cash, cash withdrawals will be made at commercial banks which have electronic bilateral payment connections and coordinated to collection on the basis of expenditures that have been properly controlled by the State Treasury units, ensuring compliance with regulations for expenditures that are allowed to be spent in cash.

Therefore, the amount of cash spent at the headquarters of the State Treasury system of Ba Ria-Vung Tau has decreased significantly, accounting for only 0.3% of the total recurrent state budget expenditure and expenditure for investment development in the province.

Furthermore, State revenue and expenditure activities in the locality which are made through Ba Ria-Vung Tau State Treasury system always ensure stability, smoothness, and no problems, receiving the support of the Party Committee, local authorities and other local budget-using units.

State Treasury at Ba Ria-Vung Tau has continued to coordinate with commercial banks in the area to expand state revenue collection points. By the end of November 2022, the state revenue collection which is made through collection cooperation with banks accounted for over 99.9% and tends to rise gradually.

In particular, direct cash collection at State Treasury headquarters is only 0.9% of the total state revenue collection in the area, mainly from small individual business households that do not have bank accounts; collected fines for administrative violations; taxes, fees and small charges.

Working closely with commercial banks

It can be seen that the promotion of non-cash payments is the first step for the State Treasury system to soon complete the Digital Treasury with the goal of "3 no’s" following the content of the State Treasury system development strategy to 2030 (no cash, no direct customer transactions, no paper documents). At the same time, non-cash payment also helps businesses in production and business activities, thereby creating conditions to promote socio-economic development activities in the locality.

Up to this point, the State Treasury has coordinated to collect state revenue collection and electronic bilateral payments with ten more joint-stock commercial banks (SHB, VBbank, Techcombank, HDBank, SeAbank, LienVietPostbank, OCB, MSB, TPBank and ACB), bringing the total number of commercial banks that coordinate to collect and spend state revenues with the State Treasury up to 15 banks. The total number of accounts serving state revenue of the State Treasury that opened at commercial banks is 2,045 (of which the State Treasury office of the province has 411 accounts, the district State Treasury has 1,634 accounts); the number of accounts paying in cash is 711; the number of foreign currency payment accounts is 61.

Besides expanding the network of accounts serving for state revenue collection, the State Treasury has always encouraged customers to collect and pay state budget through POS devices at State Treasury units; encourage organizations and individuals that have transactions with the State Treasury to use electronic collection and payment through the National Public Service Portal and make a payment through intermediary service providers, through electronic applications of commercial banks (internet banking, mobile banking, ATM) or through the portals of the General Department of Taxation, the General Department of Vietnam Customs.

Regarding state budget expenditure, to limit and move towards cashless payments, the State Treasury has made payments through electronic payment systems (e-bilateral payment, interbank payment, inter-treasury payment, and credit cards in state budget expenditure). In addition, the State Treasury has also guided, disseminated and encouraged budget-using units to apply non-cash payment methods in state budget expenditures such as transfer payments, payments through banking applications of commercial banks and intermediary payment (internet banking, mobile banking).