Thai Siam Commercial Bank launches food delivery app amid competition

 

FILE PHOTO: A man walk into the Siam Commercial Bank branch in central Bangkok, Thailand, January 23, 2017. REUTERS/Chaiwat Subprasom

 

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank Pcl (SCB) <SCB.BK> on Monday launched a food delivery platform, Robinhood, amid growing competition in the sector in Southeast Asia's second-largest economy.

 

Robinhood is the latest entrant to offer Thai food delivery services, which have seen a surge in orders amid lockdown restrictions earlier this year during the coronavirus pandemic.

 

The sector is currently dominated by Singapore-based Grab, Indonesia’s Go-Jek, Foodpanda, owned by Germany’s Delivery Hero SE

and Japan's Line Man Wongnai.

 

Thailand’s fourth-largest lender, SCB, is an investor in Go-Jek, but has said their food delivery units operate separately.

In a statement, SCB said that 10,000 riders were ready to deliver food.

 

"The Robinhood app's goal is to act as a bridge between 16,000 small merchants and customers," said SCB senior executive Thana Thienachariya.

 

The app aims to link to 30,000 restaurants by year-end.

 

Rival lender, Kasikornbank Pcl, has also launched a food ordering platform, Eatable, but does not have its own delivery fleet.

In July, Japanese chat app, Line Crop <3938.T>, announced a merger between its food delivery unit with restaurant platform Wongnai and a capital raising of $110 million with plans to expand.

 

Last week, Thailand’s competition watchdog announced guidelines for food delivery apps including charging commissions without advance notice and inappropriate charges for advertising and promotions.

 

There had been complaints that food delivery platforms have increased their service fees for restaurants from 20% to up to 40%.

 

SCB said Robinhood would not charge merchants gross profit commissions and vowed to settle payments to merchants within an hour and be entirely cashless. It will offer merchant-sponsored discounts for customers of 8%.

 

(Reporting by Chayut Setboonsarng; Editing by Ed Davies)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-10-26

 

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Typical Thai business models .. copy, copy, copy. As seen everywhere with shophouses selling similar wares right next to each other in clusters.

Does the platform's name imply something? ????

They're calling it Robinhood? A great name. Perhaps they can start by stealing from their very rich and very untouchable shareholder, and give to the poor. If we're staying in the spirit of things..

16 hours ago, DrTuner said:

Typical Thai business models .. copy, copy, copy

I hear Bangkok Bank is doing one also, they call it Friar Tuck. 

1 hour ago, klauskunkel said:

I hear Bangkok Bank is doing one also, they call it Friar Tuck. 

Oh yes, soon all the thai banks will be offering their own food delivery service and I must say it's a brilliant idea. ????

When I was a kid getting online with my slow telephone connection, I wondered what the future would be like. Surely everyone would have computers in their pockets, fast connections, and no barriers to communication.

 

Well, here we are. This wonderful new world of social media and food delivery. Those with miserable lives can now look up to beautiful, exciting people, and dream about such things. Then in the absence of much other work or advancement, they can also grovel providing services to them.

 

I also grew up listening to the CEOs of tech giants raving about how technology would make everyone's lives better. Once we all got online some amazing things would happen. Yet so far, I've mostly seen it reinforce existing social issues and inequalities.

15 hours ago, kotsak said:

Does the platform's name imply something? ????

Dick Turpin would have been nearer the truth