60,000 student loan recipients in government service warned they may lose their jobs

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60,000 student loan recipients in government service warned they may lose their jobs

By Thai PBS

 

 

BANGKOK: -- Government officials who took student loans while they were studying may face dismissal if they were found to have deliberately refused to honour their debt repayments.

 

The above warning was made by Finance Permanent Secretary Somchai Sujjapongse in his capacity as chairman of the Student Loans Committee.

 

Mr Somchai said Wednesday (Sept 20) that there are about 220,000 government officials who received student loans while studying and, of these, 60,000 of them have not honoured their debt repayments.

 

Full story: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/60000-student-loan-recipients-government-service-warned-may-lose-jobs/

 

-- © Copyright Thai PBS 2017-09-21

[Thailand]

Hope none of those debtors are now in senior government positions. 

[tonray]

1 hour ago, Thailand said:

Hope none of those debtors are now in senior government positions. 

 

Don't worry...special rules being written as we speak.

[Smiley Face]

I thought this was part of their culture!!!!  I have yet to meet a Thai that has paid back monies borrowed from others (namely me).  I learned my lesson at last.  Never trust a Thai when it comes to money.

[tonray]

An interesting sidenote is several senior Thai teachers I have worked with had the remaining balances on their mortgages paid off as they were taken thru a special bank set up for government employed teachers. The young ones were really struggling but once you achieve that seniority status, anything is possible.

[nausea]

22 minutes ago, Smiley Face said:

I have yet to meet a Thai that has paid back monies borrowed from others (namely me).

That is oh, oh-so-true; just treat it any loan as a gift, and you'll avoid a lot of grief; and you might even get a pleasant surprise, I'm sure some do.

[Suradit69]

2 hours ago, Smiley Face said:

I thought this was part of their culture!!!!  

Their culture??

It was nonperforming personal debt (sold in bundles of asset backed securities) that precipitated the financial crisis in the west in 2007/2008.

 

Always amusing how people see issues in Thailand while being totally blind to similar problems back in Farang Utopia.

 

And as far as student loans are concerned:

 

Quote

 

More than 40% of Americans who borrowed from the government’s main student-loan program aren’t making payments or are behind on more than $200 billion owed, raising worries that millions of them may never repay.

The new figures represent the fallout of a decade long borrowing boom as record numbers of students enrolled in trade schools, universities and graduate schools.

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-than-40-of-student-borrowers-arent-making-payments-1459971348

[overherebc]

1 hour ago, nausea said:

That is oh, oh-so-true; just treat it any loan as a gift, and you'll avoid a lot of grief; and you might even get a pleasant surprise, I'm sure some do.

Friend got married in BKK and after two or three months the first sister, his wife has two sisters, asked to borrow 30,000 baht. A few weeks later the other sister asked for the same. He told her he would lend her the money as soon as the other sister paid back the first loan.

Hasn't seen either of them since and reckons it was the best 30,000 he ever spent in Thailand. ??

[taichiplanet]

The government is pulling in all the old student loans to be paid. My gf received a letter 2 months ago and had to go back to her home town for a group meeting of other student loan debtors. A lawyer told them what had to be done and payment terms were very good, can do over 9 years without any interest. About 200 people in her small town, but many people at her job in Bkk had to do the same. She owed about THB 10k and thought she had paid it off as hadn't received any correspondence for 10 years about it.

 

The loans should be paid back but my intitial reaction was the government must be getting desperate for money.

[Muzarella]

If those people are employed now, why the Govertnment debt is not taked from their pay check?..... Looks like the Thai Governmet is naive about Thai debtors like foreigners do.

[inThailand]

Have they ever heard of garnishing wages?

[connda]

Before I married my wife, I paid off a bank loan that had a lien against her house and land.  A relatively small loan of 30K THB had ballooned to 150K.  Most Thai will only pay the minimum needed to service the loan.  
Part of the problem are rather ignorant Thai consumers, and then on the other hand there are predatory banks and lenders.  Too many people are willing to take out loans they simply can not repay.  A fiscally responsible lending institution should limit the amounts of the loans to the amount that can be repaid. A few decades ago there were formulas used by lenders to calculate that amount based on income, current loans, and credit scores.  But the lenders don't seem to care anymore, which is exactly why I used the word predatory (and greedy). They'll extend credit cards, consumer loans, and car loans to people who really are unable to service their loans. Consumers are overextended, and in the next financial downturn you will find out how many banks are overextended too and start crying for government handouts.  The government should regulate lenders, but they don't. Obviously the lending institutions have talked the government into going after its own employees to recoup loans that probably should never have been extended to the debtor in the first place.  Predatory.  Key word.  

Edited September 21, 2017 by connda

[ExpatOilWorker]

This is the scary part:

 

Around 2 million borrowers have failed to pay debts worth a total of 62 billion baht. 

[inThailand]

"the Finance Ministry had extended loans totaling 500 billion baht to about five million students"

 

So each delinquent student owes about 100,000B. Not a small amount for a new graduate to pay off.

[Sydebolle]

On 9/21/2017 at 12:37 PM, inThailand said:

"the Finance Ministry had extended loans totaling 500 billion baht to about five million students"

 

So each delinquent student owes about 100,000B. Not a small amount for a new graduate to pay off.

 

The reality - in my wife's case - was triple the amount. The loan was in excess of THB 300'000; when we met she still had THB 220'000 open, payable in lots of a few thousand Baht - of course against an interest rate. She did a profitable business deal and could pay off everything in one go - and got a discount. 

But yes, it's the US system of entering professional life with a burden of debt; the Europeans don't know how blessed they are with the almost free education for their country's future. 

[gamesgplayemail]

Do you know what happened to people who didn't pay ?