Thailand
Thailand: KBank sets out ambitious regional growth targets
Kasikornbank (KBank) aims to be a regional digital banking player, with a target of 10 million users and foreign banking income making up 5% of total net income.
The bank’s international banking business, named World Business Group (WBG), focuses mainly on Asean+3 (China, Japan and South Korea) and has acquired 1.6 million customers this year.
A major contribution comes from its digital banking platform, said Patarapong Kanhasuwan, head of KBank’s WBG.
He said KBank, Thailand’s second largest lender by assets, aims to reach 10 million digital banking users regionally by 2024.
The bank also expects its income from WBG to represent 5% of KBank’s total net income in 2023, signalling growth of five times.
The bank set an ambitious goal for the next phase, aiming to increase regional digital banking users to 50 million in five years, rising to 100 million in 10 years.
Mr Patarapong said KBank China, the bank’s operation in the mainland, would be a model for expanding regional banking services under the Better Me strategy. The goal is to build up customer wealth to grow the bank’s business for the long run, he said.
The bank offers digital loans in Vietnam through the K-Plus Vietnam app, which is adopted from KBank’s mobile banking app K-Plus.
KBank also plans to launch a new service based on the Banking as a Service concept as a pilot project in Vietnam, offering “beyond-banking” services via a digital platform.
In Cambodia, the bank has been developing a digital payroll lending service, which is expected to be available soon.
For the Laotian market, KBank plans to increase its QR KBank users from the existing 130,000.
The next market KBank earmarked for expansion is Indonesia.
Mr Patarapong said the bank has been building up a regional ecosystem for business operations in China, Vietnam and Indonesia, and exploring new opportunities in digital assets.
KBank calls this business growth direction Metamorphosis, based on business and digital transformation in line with the digital age, geopolitics, and the global trend of environment, social and corporate governance.
Co-president Pipit Aneknithi said the bank has explored new business opportunities in digital assets through several avenues. Under the changing global digital landscape, he said there are new opportunities for the Thai economy, local businesses, and banking business at KBank.
“In the digital era, the crypto economy and digital financial services will be the new growth arena for the Thai economy. The country has made a lot of progress in such areas in the region,” Mr Pipit said.
The financial sector currently contributes around 6-7% of the country’s GDP, compared with double-digit figures in Singapore. As a result, the bank sees more opportunities to build growth in Thailand in the digital era.
Source: https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2225851/kbank-sets-out-ambitious-regional-growth-targets