To promote non-cash collection and spending through the State Treasury system

The state budget revenue has decreased significantly, contributing to the expansion of time and space for collecting state budget, facilitating taxpayers. Picture: Thuy Linh.

​Minimize trading volume in cash

In the state budget collection, the State Treasury has expanded the opening of accounts for collection and collection of state budget for commercial banks. State-level treasury offices and district-level state treasury offices located in provinces, urban districts, towns and cities have opened accounts in five commercial banking systems: Vietcombank, Agribank, BIDV, VietinBank and MBBank. According to statistics, there are 1,107 accounts at the provincial level of State Treasury and district-level State Treasury. Statistics at the end of 2017 show that cash receipts from the State Treasury are only 1.94% of total revenue through the State Treasury. The state budget revenue has decreased significantly, contributing to the expansion of time and space for collecting state budget, facilitating taxpayers.

With the state budget expenditure, the State Treasury has controlled the payment in cash in strict accordance with the prescribed regime; at the same time, to continue promoting personal payment via account, applying modern payment methods in state budget payment such as payment via electronic transfer, credit card. In addition, as of April 1, 2017, the cash payments of units dealing with the District State Treasury with a value of VND1 billion or more were transferred to commercial banks. As a result, the proportion of cash spent in relation to total expenditures through the State Treasury was only 7.57%. By the end of 2017, cash expenditures at the State Treasury have decreased by about 25% over the same period of 2016.

In general, over the past time, the management of revenue and expenditure in cash through the State Treasury has achieved important results, both improving the speed of processing and transparency of payment transactions of the Government, as well as spillover effect, promoting and enhancing the development of payment infrastructure, service quality of commercial banks.

In the assessment report on the current state of payments by the Government of Vietnam, the World Bank has made positive comments on the efforts of the Government of Vietnam in general and the State Treasury in particular in enhancing automation and transparency. In the collection and payment process; to make full use of modern payment systems and services in state budget revenues and expenditures, which minimizes costs and errors in transactions, shortening payment time, transparency of transactions, and minimizing transaction volume in cash.

Forward to credit card payments in state budget spending

In fact, the non-cash collection and spending mode through the State Treasury system has been jointly implemented by the State Treasury with commercial banks in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City since 2015 and expanded in 5 direct cities. The central level in 2017. According to representatives of the State Treasury, although the legal basis for payment by credit card for state budget expenditures has been completed, State Treasury as well as commercial banks have actively propagated and disseminated to units that deal with credit card payment. However, this form of payment is not popular, does not fully utilize the benefits brought about by card payment. This is mainly due to the usage habits of the spending units and the limitations of the current POS / EDC network. That is the payment infrastructure in rural areas because urban Vietnam is not synchronized in remote and isolated areas, so accessing banking services is relatively low.

In addition, in some areas, the volume of cash receipts and payments is still large due to the habit of the payers and the transaction unit. The management of cash receipts and expenditures is not commensurate with the level of development of payment infrastructure; the volume of cash receipts and expenditures is large leading to the cost of human resources and time...

These practices are making it difficult for the State Treasury to carry out administrative reforms in a simplified manner, shortening the processing time as well as streamlining, and streamlining the organizational structure according to the policy of the Board, executing the Party Central Committee in Resolution No. 18-NQ / TU dated 25/10/2017. As a result, in the coming time, the State Treasury will continue to promote non-cash receipts and expenditures through the State Treasury system as well as synchronous implementation of solutions to contribute to the implementation of the policy of non-cash payment by the State. In order to do this, the State Treasury will continue to expand the receivable accounts and mandate state budget revenue in cash for commercial banks to undertake. In 2017, the results of the expansion of the State Treasury Fiscal Account at the five commercial banks where the State Treasury opened the accounts proved that this was the right thing to do.

Along with that, the method of payment via credit card in state budget spending will be expanded to limit the case of cash payments. At present, the proportion of cash payment in comparison with the total expenditure through the State Treasury is low, but the form of payment in cash is still widespread, even in provinces and cities where it is possible to use the method of electronic payment (payment by bank transfer, payment by card, ...). This situation can be changed by forcing the payment by credit card for small expenses, such as the purchase of airfare, hotel room...

According to the State Treasury, in general, the volume of revenue and expenditure transactions of the state budget accounts for a significant proportion of the total volume of transactions of payment activities of the economy. Therefore, the shift from cash payment to non-cash payment in state budget revenue and expenditure transactions has a great impact on the conversion of payment habits of organizations and individuals.