CIMB Thai to focus on quality of loans instead of expansion

By THE NATION

CIMB Thai Plc will adjust its loan expansion target due to the Covid-19 situation that has had a significant impact on Thai economy, the bank's president and chief executive officer Adisorn Sermchaiwong said.

“We had set this year’s loan growth target at 12 per cent over last year, but due to the current situation the bank might see no expansion in loans at all,” he said.

“Our mission for this year therefore has to shift from increasing the amount of loans granted to maintaining the quality of loans and focusing on granting loans to target groups that have higher potential," he said.

“CIMBT also estimates that non-performing loans [NPLs] this year will be at the same level as the previous year despite the Covid-19 outbreak, thanks to the supportive policies of the Bank of Thailand,” added Adisorn. “We aim to maintain NPLs at 4 per cent until the end of 2020 and are planning to sell NPLs of around Bt1 billion to Bt2 billion to achieve the goal.”

Adisorn added that in the past five months the bank has seen over 80 per cent increase in banking transactions on digital platform. “This year we have added more services on digital platform including mobile banking, mutual fund digital buying and digital lending in response to changing customers behaviour in the new normal era,” he said.

“The bank estimates that until the year-end the bank’s transactions via digital platform could rise to 90 per cent of overall transactions.”

“As for the investment budget for 2020, we still maintain the original target of Bt500 million to Bt600 million, with main focus on IT infrastructure,” he added. “Although in the past few months the bank did not invest much in IT due to lockdown measures, towards the end of the year we may invest in other aspects to prepare for the post Covid-19 era.”

CIMBT’s shareholder meeting on Friday (June 26) approved the payment of 2019 interim dividends to shareholders at Bt0.005 per share, amounting to Bt174.11 million.

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/business/30390402