Thailand’s largest bank by revenue, Kasikornbank Pcl, has unveiled that it is planning to introduce a new FinTech platform by the end of the year as it attempts to prevent fee income from its rival banks.
In a report from Bloomberg, Kattiya Indaravijaya, one of the four presidents at the Bangkok-based company, said that the goal was to produce faster, easier and lower-cost online banking transactions. There are also talks with overseas companies to create the digital payments platform.
According to information from the Bank of Thailand, Thai mobile and Internet banking transactions increased by 26 percent between April and September in 2016.
Warut Siwasariyanon, head of research at Asia Wealth Securities Co. in Bangkok, said:
Digital-banking platforms will be the major infrastructure for domestic banks to maintain their competitiveness.
Thailand’s FinTech Ramps Up
In recent months, FinTech in Thailand has been ramping up as it embraces the technology that other countries are getting involved with.
At the end of last month, a new report came out that illustrated that there will be a sweeping adoption of blockchain technology in a number of areas including finance within Thailand by 2018.
An increase in adoption can already be seen with a number of blockchain projects taking shape. A successful remittance pilot in November saw more than 100 migrant workers sending money to their homeland, Myanmar, using the Ethereum blockchain.
Alex Tapscott, chief executive of Northwest Passage Ventures, a blockchain business consulting firm, has recently come out and said that Thailand should embrace FinTech to improve quality of life while speaking at a seminar.
Aversive to Bitcoin
In the past, Thailand has been averse to the adoption of bitcoin. So much so, that the Bank of Thailand has issued several statements as to their feelings on the digital currency.
Yet, while the bank has certainly taken a cautionary view of the currency in the past, it seems that the country is keen to embrace its underlying distributed ledger, the blockchain. Not surprising consider the technology is experiencing an increase within many sectors around the world.
The country certainly has a long way to go compared to the likes of London, Singapore, or New York, but the fact that its benefits are being realized now could mean that the country may end up becoming a hub for the technology in the future.
The FinTech sector is producing a big impact on many industries, which is only going to continue its upward trend. It makes sense, therefore, for countries such as Thailand to jump on board.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
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