Vietnam banks to stop auto-splitting large transfers for instant payments from April 21

Eximbank said the change is being implemented to comply with Circular 40/2024 issued by the State Bank of Vietnam.

TPBank and VPBank announced similar measures.

Under the change, transfers at or above VND500 million will no longer be automatically divided into smaller transactions to be processed through the Napas 24/7 instant payment system, and will instead be handled via standard transfer channels.

Previously, banks used technical solutions to split large transfers into multiple transactions below the system's per-transaction limit, allowing near-instant processing including outside business hours.

Banks said customers seeking faster transfers of large amounts will need to manually split transactions into sums below VND500 million to continue using the instant payment service.

Without the automatic splitting feature, such transfers may take several hours to process or be completed on the next working day.

Since July 1, 2024, online transfers exceeding VND10 million ($380) per transaction or VND20 million ($760) per day, as well as e-wallet top-ups above VND10 million per day, have required biometric authentication via facial recognition under central bank regulations.

Authorities have also deployed a payment monitoring and fraud prevention system across 149 institutions, including 99 banks and 50 payment intermediaries.

The system has issued about 3.5 million alerts, with more than 1.1 million transactions halted or canceled, preventing losses of more than VND3.99 trillion ($151.5 million), according to official data.