Vietcombank and MasterCard Announce Landmark Partnership for the Payments Industry in Vietnam

Under the terms of the agreement, MasterCard has appointed Vietcombank as its Sponsoring Principal in Vietnam, to sponsor 11 Commercial Banks as affiliate-members of MasterCard. In its role as Sponsoring Principal, Vietcombank will, on behalf of these affiliate members, acquire and exclusively issue a range of MasterCard-branded payments cards. In another agreement signed between MasterCard and Vietcombank, the latter will, independently of the Commercial Banks, issue MasterCard Electronic and MasterCard branded debit cards exclusively, commencing in the second quarter of 2004. Furthermore, in a separate set of agreements signed by Vietcombank with the 11 Commercial Banks - Techcombank, VPBank, Military Bank, Habubank, VIB Bank, NASB, Housing Bank, Tan Viet Bank, Viet A Bank, Chohung Vina Bank and Maritime Bank - Vietcombank will issue MasterCard cards on behalf of the Commercial Banks exclusively. The cards issued will include, without limitation, MasterCard credit cards, MasterCard Electronic and MasterCard branded debit cards. Vietcombank will also launch a series of acquiring initiatives including deployment of Automatic Teller Machines (ATM), Cash Dispensing Machines and Electronic Data Capture (EDC) machines on behalf of its Commercial Banks. MasterCard will undertake to provide training to Vietcombank and the Commercial Banks on the areas of marketing, operations, risks and security and EMV. In all these issuing and acquiring activities, Vietcombank will act as a central processor to perform authorization, routing, settlement and clearance through MasterCards international network. As a first phase of the implementation of the agreement, one of the Commercial Banks - Techcombank - has already completed work on integrating its proprietary local card network, F@st Access, with Vietcombank ATM network - Connect 24. This immediately provides all Techcombank customers instant access to Vietcombank ATM and EDC terminals in Vietnam. The first phase will be replicated across the other 11 Commercial Banks individual proprietary systems. In the second phase, which is already underway, enhancements to the Connect 24 system will give Vietcombank and the Commerical Bank cardholders unparalleled access to MasterCards global network of 900,000 ATMs and millions of acceptance terminals across the world.