A Vietnamese joint stock commercial bank has finally agreed to repay the deposit and interest for a savings book a Ho Chi Minh City customer made back in the 1980s, nearly a month after the depositor was told her money had disappeared.
But it is unclear whether Le Thi Bich Thuy is happy or upset with what she received, a mere VND4,385 (roughly 20 U.S. cents), for a deposit equivalent to five months' salary for a civil servant in 1983, when she opened the savings at the Socialist Saving Fund under the State Bank of Vietnam then.
In 1983, Thuy deposited VND270, the face value at the time, at the Ba Chieu branch of the Socialist Saving Fund, in answer to a saving campaign to support national building.
Gold was priced at around VND1,200-1,300 per tael (37.5 grams) at that time, when an extended family could afford life for months with such an amount of money.
In October this year, Thuy wanted to get her money back and learned that the amount and the fund had been transferred to a Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade (VietinBank) branch in Binh Thanh District.
A VietinBank teller explained to Thuy that in 1985 the state launched a national money-changing campaign which exchanged the old VND10, the kind of money she deposited, for the new VND1.
As a consequence, her VND270 savings account was reduced to VND27 in value with no interest.
As VND27 was lower than the amount of money needed to maintain the account, Thuy’s fund was deducted to zero, and her savings book is “now only valuable as a souvenir,” she told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper earlier this month.
After her case was reported by Tuoi Tre, VietinBank began reviewing its database and ended up agreeing to pay the depositor 20 cents.
“The money Thuy deposited and the interest on the savings as of November 30, 2014 is VND4,385 collectively,” a bank representative said.
The deposit is converted in accordance with the State Bank of Vietnam’s rate and the interest is calculated based on the deposit rates over the last 31 years of VietinBank, the bank representative further explained.
Thuy’s deposit was a non-term saving with profits and bonuses, according to her old and yellowed savings book.
Thuy told Tuoi Tre on Tuesday she had been informed of the final settlement of her savings by VietinBank, adding she will still complete procedures to get the humble amount of money.
“Most of the deposits decades ago were non-term savings, so the interest rates were modest,” Nguyen Hoang Minh, deputy director of the Ho Chi Minh City branch of the State Bank of Vietnam, said.
The deposit interest rate is currently capped at 5.5 percent a year for savings of a term between one and six months, while the ceiling for non-term or under-one-month-term savings is one percent a year, Minh said.
After Thuy reported her problem, owners of similar decades-old deposits have asked the State Bank of Vietnam to resolve their cases.
“Our duty is to repay and ensure the right and interest of the depositors,” Minh said.
(Source: http://tuoitrenews.vn/business/24292/vietnam-depositor-receives-20-cents-for-30year-bank-savings)
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