Dollar transactions at Vietcombank headquarters in Ha Noi. Several commercial banks offer many promotional programmes for customers when using money transfer services during the Tet holiday. — VNA/VNS Photo Tran Viet

HA NOI (Biz Hub) — Commercial banks have put on many promotional programmes for their money transfer services leading up to Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday.

According to online newspaper VnExpress, incoming remittances normally grow prior to the traditional Tet holiday, so many banks including DongA Bank, Vietcombank, Vietinbank, SeABank and HDBank have adopted new measures to benefit from this market movement.

DongA Money Transfer Company under the DongA Bank offers a VND300 million (US$13,700) lucky programme for recipients of remittances at the bank.

Recipients of remittances at Vietinbank also have the chance to win many presents such as motorcycles and television sets.

A representative from DongA Money Transfer Company said that remittances at Tet often increase sharply, and this year would be better since the holiday fell near the end of January when overseas Vietnamese and Vietnamese workers abroad often get their salaries and send it to their relatives at home.

Therefore, he was optimistic about the remittances this year, and added that his company has to enhance the number of staff during the occasion to ensure timely payments to recipients.

Le Thanh Trung, deputy director of HDBank, said that the remittances at his bank had increased significantly and had come mainly from the United States (US) and Taiwan.

Money Transfer Co of the Sai Gon Thuong Tin Bank said that the bank's remittances were expected to exceed the $2 billion target set for 2015.

Nguyen Hoang Minh, deputy director of the State Bank of Viet Nam's HCM City branch, estimated that the remittances to HCM City, which is one of the top localities nationwide receiving the largest volume, reached more than $5.5 billion by the end of December last year, up $500 million against the set target.

According to Minh, the achievement was forecast in wake of the recovery of domestic investment channels, especially real estate, which the government has so far allowed foreigners to own houses in Viet Nam.

Statistics from the SBV's HCM City branch showed that remittances flowing into production and business accounted for more than 70.6 per cent of the country's total remittances. Another 20.7 per cent went into real estate investment and 6 per cent to 7 per cent were for Viet kieu's (overseas Vietnamese's) relatives for consumer purposes such as medical treatment or tourism.

According to a recent World Bank report entitled "Migration and remittances fact book 2016", Viet Nam received nearly $12.3 billion in remittances in 2015. The country is the 11th largest recipient of remittances worldwide, and ranks third in the Asia-Pacific region after China and the Philippines, according to the report.

About $7 billion of Viet Nam's remittances last year came from the US, with the nation ranking ninth among those receiving dollar remittances from the North American nation. — VNS