Difficulty transferring to transport account

On October 1, vehicle owners’ toll accounts were required to switch to traffic accounts, otherwise, cars would not be able to pass through automatic toll stations. However, to date, hundreds of thousands of vehicles are still having difficulty converting.

Transport businesses in confusion

Mr. Nguyen Van Tung, owner of a transport business on Au Co Street, Tan Binh Ward (HCMC), said that the company has nearly 40 container trucks. If all of them have to deposit money into their transport accounts, the management costs will be very complicated.

On October 1, vehicles passing through toll stations must have a traffic account (photo taken at toll station No. 3 - National Highway 51). Photo: QUOC HUNG

He wants a common account for easy control, but current regulations require each vehicle to have its own account. Accounting for costs creates additional procedures, requires personnel to monitor, takes time, and makes it difficult to make costs transparent. Meanwhile, Mr. Do Van Bang, owner of Sao Viet Transport Company, suggested that the conversion of accounts should be divided into two groups: individuals and businesses. In particular, the group of transport businesses should continue to apply the current form of transaction, which is to authorize payment from the business account, to avoid the situation of opening too many small accounts, causing difficulties for management.

A representative of VETC, a non-stop toll collection service provider, said that most corporate customers want to pay via their corporate bank accounts. But in reality, bank accounts are not inherently a non-cash payment method. Payment methods, according to the State Bank's regulations, include: checks, payment orders, payment authorizations, collections, collection authorizations, bank cards... Thus, bank accounts need to have payment authorizations to be able to make automatic payments.

However, the deduction of non-stop toll collection fees directly from bank accounts through payment authorization is currently not possible due to technical barriers. Currently, the non-stop electronic toll collection system must process transactions instantly with real time not exceeding 200ms (ie 0.2 seconds) with a rate of 99.7%. Meanwhile, the connection speed with bank accounts is slower, only reaching about 50%, so it cannot meet the demand.

Along with that, businesses are currently unable to link their transport accounts with e-wallets as they do with personal transport accounts, because so far no intermediary payment unit has deployed an e-wallet specifically for businesses. An alternative solution such as payment via credit card has been studied, but the current fees of banks and card organizations are still quite high (about 2% per transaction), causing large costs for transport businesses with frequent transactions.

Proposal to delay application

Faced with the above situation, a representative of VETC said that they are coordinating with the Vietnam Road Administration, the State Bank and payment intermediary organizations to develop common standards, as well as find feasible solutions for businesses. The unit has proposed that the State Bank consider directing banks, payment intermediary organizations, and cards to reduce or waive transaction service fees for electronic road toll collection transactions. VETC hopes that units will optimize technical solutions to meet the requirements of fast, safe, and accurate processing for each vehicle passing through the station.

Meanwhile, on September 29, information from the Vietnam Road Administration showed that there are still about 2.5/5.8 million vehicles nationwide that have not converted their toll collection accounts to traffic accounts connected to e-wallets. The Vietnam Road Administration has directed investors and BOT project enterprises to coordinate with road payment service providers to arrange staff on duty at the stations 24/7 to support and guide vehicle owners to convert accounts and connect traffic accounts with payment means. However, some vehicle owners are not interested and do not have the need to travel through toll stations, so they have not converted their accounts.

Currently, the leaders of the Vietnam Road Administration still have no official answer on whether vehicles that have not converted their toll collection accounts to traffic accounts and still have money in their accounts can pass through the station by October 1.

Consider integrating in one account

Traffic experts say that many toll stations, parking lots, and bus stations have not been connected to the traffic account system, leading to a "half-digital - half-manual" situation, people have to use both cash and accounts, causing inconvenience. To make it easier for people to convert, it is necessary to expand the scope of traffic account applications, integrate with banks - e-wallets, and allow businesses to centrally manage groups of vehicles.

In addition, the State needs to have incentive policies such as reducing fees when paying via account, or giving priority to vehicles using accounts when going through automatic toll stations. If the transportation account is convenient when integrating from parking, taking the bus, taking the metro to tolls, with just one application on the phone used for all types of fees, people will proactively implement it.

QUOC HUNG - BICH QUYEN

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/kho-khan-chuyen-sang-tai-khoan-giao-thong-post815483.html