Some legal issues about credit cards in Vietnam - Compare with US law provisions

Abstract

Credit card service is a relatively special type of service. In essence, the specialness of this type of business is expressed in the fact that credit institutions have combined their two basic operations, including payment activities and credit granting activities into one type of service. The law about credit cards requires a smooth combination of the above provisions and constitutes a complete legal framework to regulate issues including the card business of credit institutions, credit card usage of customers, intermediary payment activities of card payment organizations. The initial research results show that risks in the credit card payment process are inevitable. In addition to the risks of technical and security factors, other risks involve legal risks for the obligation to ensure safety for credit card payment activities of entities related to this process. Hence, the identification of legal risks to clearly define the legal rights and obligations of related parties is a necessary study that contributes to the development of Vietnam's credit card market in the integration period. On the basis of comparing with the provisions of the law of the United States governing credit cards, the authors contend that this separate legal document for credit cards needs to be emphasized on important contents such as cardholders, credit card issuance and use contracts, the problems of clarification of responsibility to bear risks, interest rates and fees for the use of credit cards, credit limits, problems with consumer credit card abuse, and credit card fraud. These contents will be analyzed in detail to make recommendations with the aim of creating a complete legal framework in regulating credit card activities. Thereby we can take advantage of credit cards as well as minimize disadvantages from credit cards.