Pictures courtesy of Thaiger

 

Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) is restructuring its retail operations by reducing staff and branch numbers in response to changing customer behaviour and the growing influence of artificial intelligence in banking. The move comes as the bank seeks greater efficiency during a period of high household debt and economic uncertainty.

 

Since May, SCB has reorganised its retail segment into a consumer banking division, covering branches, retail services, and employees. Chief Executive Kris Chantanotoke said the changes reflect customer demand and the continuing shift towards digital banking. The restructuring will gradually reduce the bank’s workforce of around 18,000 employees and 651 branches.

 

SCB expects to maintain only about 500 branches in the near future, with a target of shifting 20% of branch transactions to digital channels by the end of this year. Branch activity has fallen sharply, from 120 million annual transactions before the pandemic to 60 million during it, stabilising at lower levels since. SCB’s mobile banking application, SCB Easy, now has about 17 million users.

 

Kris noted that major Thai banks, which currently employ between 18,000 and 19,000 staff, are projected to reduce numbers to between 10,000 and 15,000 within the next decade. To support this transition, SCB has introduced a voluntary early retirement scheme for employees aged 55 and older. In addition, the bank is retraining staff, with 1,000 expected to complete upskilling programmes as virtual financial advisors by the end of this year.

 

Alongside cost-cutting, SCB is rebalancing its revenue sources. Before the 1997 financial crisis, corporate banking dominated income, followed later by retail banking. The bank now plans to diversify evenly across corporate, small business and retail segments.

 

SCB has set financial goals for 2025, including a 10% return on equity, a cost-to-income ratio below 40%, and digital revenue contributing 25% of total income. Kris said the bank must adapt to broader economic challenges, stressing that “the government must act quickly with coordinated fiscal and monetary measures.”

 

Vitoon Pornsakulvanich, chief consumer banking officer, said future efforts will focus on personalised services, wealth management, and AI-powered smart branches. This transformation is designed to align SCB with long-term trends in Thailand’s financial sector and ensure its competitiveness in an increasingly digital economy.

 

 

Key Takeaways

 

• SCB will reduce its workforce and branches while expanding digital banking.

• A voluntary retirement scheme and retraining aim to manage the transition.

• The bank targets higher digital revenue and balanced income streams in 2025.

 

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  Adapted by Asean Now from The Thaiger 2025-09-14

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It has already begun and was inevitable. Just look at other countries. Branch coverage has been dramatically reduced there. Thailand previously, and perhaps still, had a very high density of bank branches. Unsustainable economically.

 

On the flip side, branch closures do introduce inconvenience. This is certainly the case in my country, the UK. My town has 15,000 people. Not a single bank or building society.

6 hours ago, Georgealbert said:

Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) is restructuring its retail operations by reducing staff and branch numbers in response to changing customer behaviour and the growing influence of artificial intelligence in banking. The move comes as the bank seeks greater efficiency during a period of high household debt and economic uncertainty (...)

 

Vitoon Pornsakulvanich, chief consumer banking officer, said future efforts will focus on personalised services, wealth management, and AI-powered smart branches. This transformation is designed to align SCB with long-term trends in Thailand’s financial sector and ensure its competitiveness in an increasingly digital economy.

 

(...)

 

Key Takeaways

 

• SCB will reduce its workforce and branches while expanding digital banking.

• A voluntary retirement scheme and retraining aim to manage the transition.

• The bank targets higher digital revenue and balanced income streams in 2025.

 

Long article, but, in a nutshell, SCB is moving even more into wealth management, seeking higher profit margins, not last by closing down branches, while leaving indebted average Somchais to the government bank losers... 

6 hours ago, Briggsy said:

It has already begun and was inevitable. Just look at other countries. Branch coverage has been dramatically reduced there. Thailand previously, and perhaps still, had a very high density of bank branches. Unsustainable economically.

 

On the flip side, branch closures do introduce inconvenience. This is certainly the case in my country, the UK. My town has 15,000 people. Not a single bank or building society.

Yes agreed, but as the branches close there is no business rates for the council!

And guess where they need to increase revenue!

😖😳🤔

They've already gutted their branches (3 of them) and ATMs (all of them) in my area. Ought to make things even more unpleasant for people using SCB for the bank letter for extensions at immigration. Could have kept their online banking, but they are clearly going to frog march everyone onto the phone app, and when that goes wrong . . . no place to go.

Happening around the world. 
 

6 hours ago, Georgealbert said:

major Thai banks, which currently employ between 18,000 and 19,000 staff, are projected to reduce numbers to between 10,000 and 15,000 within the next decade. To support this transition, SCB has introduced a voluntary early retirement scheme for employees aged 55 and older.

Early retirement, ok, but wonder what type of compensation they receive. More job losses that are permanent. What do you do with people when you don't need them? Bad enough in western nations, in the 2nd & 3rd world it could create a very ugly future, as not enough jobs becomes a structural fact of their economies. 

This is just the beginning, but still they love s-can to pay for goods and services . . .

If I was there I would buy the stock

13 hours ago, John Drake said:

Ought to make things even more unpleasant for people using SCB for the bank letter for extensions at immigration.

Indeed. However SCB closed its branch at CW (Bangkok immigration) some time ago. 

Now sadly Kasikorn is also about to close at CW. 

Also close my branch at Fortune town. Bummer. 

The business plan will be across the board. 

Good for those with bank shares. Not so for customers

As crypto and digital payment systems which will employ hardly any staff become more widespread and easier to use, the traditional staff heavy banks will lose more and more of their customers.

 

Digital banking doesn't need branches, directors, managers or tellers.

The ability  send money to anyone anywhere in the world instantly from a phone app for next to nothing will force banks to rely on other services, and will be mucg cheaper for the public.

 

This is the idea being sold to everyone. The reality might prove to be very different once they get their claws into us.

Look at the fees charged by banks for ATM's etc.

4 minutes ago, phetphet said:

the traditional staff heavy banks will lose more and more of their customers.

I don't disagree in principal yet the queues in my local SCB (in a shopping mall) seem to be getting worse on the few occasions I need to use them

 

Immigration need to take heed, listen to what's happening and adjust the requirements for visa, great saying get a letter and bank statement from the bank, but if the bank no longer exists that becomes problematic. Went to my local scb bank last week, gone and taken all the arms with them

I have a small sub-branch SCB 2 minutes from my home, I sincerely they remain.

The staff are very helpful and almost like friends as they know all their local customers very well.

The main branch in town is very austere.

21 hours ago, Briggsy said:

My town has 15,000 people. Not a single bank or building society.

And yet if something goes amiss there are standing instructions which tell you to go into your local branch who will sort it out for you.

Also you can optionally use a phone number if your not hearing impeded.

They already have - a lot of their branches in Chiang Mai have been closed and as a consequence, it can take more than an hour to talk to someone when you visit a still open branch, now. 

This is another example of how AI, which is relatively new, has been confused with programming, which has been around for decades. The headline and the first paragraph both mention AI, but nowhere else. Digitla banking uses programming, but AI is something quite different. We need to be very wary of AI being used in banking.

An "excellent" idea was to scrap the browser application of their banking software "for security reasons" and limited access to smart phones only. 
Considering the fact, that much more phones are getting lost or stolen ..... compared to desktops? 

I - for one - were not willing to do banking on a small smartphone screen as I prefer a proper monitor and a key board - a local Mandy decades-old customer more gone for good ........... This move must have cost them thousands of customers as customers (still) have the choice. 

Yes, my local branch gone ... it's becoming like the UK , why do they think

everyone has a mobile phone ,to do online banking , I don't, have to get

the wife to do it ,(i trust her ,after 39 years ) ,don't like the way the World

is going , to me CASH will always be king.... 

 

regards worgeordie

1 hour ago, Muhendis said:

And yet if something goes amiss there are standing instructions which tell you to go into your local branch who will sort it out for you.

 

In the last two years I have had to go in a few times after my account has been locked.

 

After trying to help, the branch staff ended up ringing the call centre...

 

 

20 minutes ago, worgeordie said:

Yes, my local branch gone ... it's becoming like the UK , why do they think

everyone has a mobile phone ,to do online banking , I don't, have to get

the wife to do it ,(i trust her ,after 39 years ) ,don't like the way the World

is going , to me CASH will always be king.... 

 

regards worgeordie

I completely agree with you, and even that cash is becoming less and less valuable. I still had some HKD lying around, so I checked with the SCB, but they gave me such a poor exchange rate that I drove 180 km to the best exchange office in BKK and converted those in Thai baht and then into gold straight away.
Who can touch me?

On 9/14/2025 at 10:37 AM, Georgealbert said:

the growing influence of artificial intelligence in banking

 

cut costs if you must but this excuse is absolute bullsh*t

So number 2 to go to early retirement plan for their employees after Kasikorn .....

Sign on the wall in Banking land ...

9 hours ago, topt said:

I don't disagree in principal yet the queues in my local SCB (in a shopping mall) seem to be getting worse on the few occasions I need to use them

 

The queues in shopping mall branches are always long, either because people need to work during the week, or perhaps because other branches are closing down... 😆 

10 hours ago, DrJack54 said:

Indeed. However SCB closed its branch at CW (Bangkok immigration) some time ago. 

Now sadly Kasikorn is also about to close at CW. 

Also close my branch at Fortune town. Bummer. 

The business plan will be across the board. 

Good for those with bank shares. Not so for customers

 

Wasn't there an idea floated a few years ago to allow 7 Eleven to do banking? I'm sure I remember it. I wish they had done so. A bank branch every 200 meters is a dream come true.

2 minutes ago, John Drake said:

 

Wasn't there an idea floated a few years ago to allow 7 Eleven to do banking?

Think you are mixing up the "prank" Claim that 90 day reports could be done at 7/11

happened several years back😆

so I will have to wait longer than 30 minutes to make a deposit now? more efficiency for the bank equals less customer service in this case

1 hour ago, DrJack54 said:

Think you are mixing up the "prank" Claim that 90 day reports could be done at 7/11

happened several years back😆

 

I thought I was going mad remembering it. But it's true! I looked it up. It was back in 2018. Whatever happened to the idea?  

Quote

Word that 7-Eleven could start offering banking services surfaced a week ago when senior Bank of Thailand official Daranee Saeju said an upcoming regulatory change would clear the way for the convenience stores to launch deposit and withdrawal services.: https://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/business/2018/02/21/will-7-eleven-pick-thailands-banks-leave-off/

 

On 9/14/2025 at 5:20 PM, John Drake said:

They've already gutted their branches (3 of them) and ATMs (all of them) in my area. Ought to make things even more unpleasant for people using SCB for the bank letter for extensions at immigration. Could have kept their online banking, but they are clearly going to frog march everyone onto the phone app, and when that goes wrong . . . no place to go.

Yes. What happens if you are traveling for several weeks and your mobile is lost or stolen? How do you pay rent or bills back home, or transfer funds? Phone bank I guess?

2 minutes ago, ronnie50 said:

Yes. What happens if you are traveling for several weeks and your mobile is lost or stolen? How do you pay rent or bills back home, or transfer funds? Phone bank I guess?

 

Phone the bank and get caught in a loop with an AI that will not admit it's wrong. Can't wait. What happens to the staff? Where do those people go? 

12 hours ago, phetphet said:

As crypto and digital payment systems which will employ hardly any staff become more widespread and easier to use, the traditional staff heavy banks will lose more and more of their customers.

 

Digital banking doesn't need branches, directors, managers or tellers.

The ability  send money to anyone anywhere in the world instantly from a phone app for next to nothing will force banks to rely on other services, and will be mucg cheaper for the public.

 

This is the idea being sold to everyone. The reality might prove to be very different once they get their claws into us.

Look at the fees charged by banks for ATM's etc.

Fair call. It's all good until the App or Apps etc crash/get hacked or you have to change your phone#. Plenty of that been happening back in Oz (not only banks), with a great Thai response from the banks...."Not my Problam."🙃🙃