The HCM City Post Office in collaboration with the HCM City Social Insurance Agency will launch a pilot scheme to pay pensions and social insurance for pensioners in two districts, The Saigon Times Daily reported.

The post office said pensioners in District 1 and Binh Chanh district could come to the nearest post offices to get monthly pensions quickly and conveniently as staffers are arranged to work during office hours.

HCM City is the last among the country’s 63 provinces and cities where pensioners and social insurance beneficiaries can come to post offices to get payments. Currently there are more than 8,000 post offices in 62 provinces and cities where pensions are paid.

The HCM City Post Office and the Social Insurance Agency said in a statement that the city government has allowed them to pay monthly pensions and social insurance allowances in cash via the post networks in the two districts.

This scheme will be carried out from July 2015 to June 2016 in line with the list provided by social insurance entities.

The HCM City Post Office will arrange staff to offer home delivery service for medically unfit pensioners.

The payment period will be from the first to the tenth of each month and the HCM City Post Office will arrange sufficient money so that pensioners can get payments whenever they come to post offices. At the moment pensioners can hardly get their pensions right at the start of month as monthly cash disbursements for local social insurance agencies take a couple of days.

According to the HCM City Post Office and Social Insurance Agency, Vietnam has some 2.9 million people receiving pensions and social insurance allowances totaling 100 trillion VND (4.6 billion USD) a year.

In 2011, the Vietnam Social Insurance and the Vietnam Post Corporation (VNPost) test-ran a project to pay social insurance at the post offices in Lam Dong, Bac Can, Dak Nong and Phu Yen provinces. The project was expanded to Binh Thuan, Can Tho, Dak Lak, Long An, Nghe An, Quang Tri, Quang Nam, and Tuyen Quang provinces in April 2012.-VNA