One Million Credit Cards For Thai Farmers To Be Launched Next Month

[webfact]

Credit Cards for Farmers to be Launched Next Month

BANGKOK: -- The Bank for Agriculture & Agricultural Cooperatives will offer one million credit cards for farmers, which is set to launch in April.

Bank for Agriculture & Agricultural Cooperatives or BAAC manager, Luck Wajananawat will offer one million credit cards for farmers nationwide on April 1. He said the bank will manage to allocate an additional one million cards next year as well.

Earlier, the BAAC distributed a total of five thousand cards in five provinces, namely Chiang Mai, Udon Thani, Ayutthaya, Lopburi, and Saraburi.

Luck reiterated that the credit system is expected to be opened officially on March 20. Farmers will be able to buy equipment, including fertilizers, pesticides, and plant seeds from stores registered with the BAAC, with the number reaching two thousand shops.

However, the BAAC manager voiced concern that farmers will use the credit to withdraw cash, instead of buying agricultural equipment. He said the BAAC will closely monitor the credit usage.

If farmers or stores have been found of misapplying credit, they will be blacklisted on the BAAC record. Moreover, they will not entitle to further attend the project.

He clarified that farmers who entitle the program must not have outstanding debts. The card will offer a maximum of a 70 percent loan limit and an interest-free period for a month, while carrying a seven percent interest rate annually.

-- Tan Network 2012-03-12

[Sydebolle]

Indebt them all again? Unbelievable.......

How to keep an uneducated majority of voters under control and fear!

[Reasonableman]

White elephant (noun)

1. a possession unwanted by the owner but difficult to dispose of: Our Victorian bric-a-brac and furniture were white elephants.

2. a possession entailing great expense out of proportion to its usefulness or value to the owner: When he bought the mansion he didn't know it was going to be such a white elephant.

3. an abnormally whitish or pale elephant, usually found inThailand; an albino elephant.

http://dictionary.re.../white+elephant

Edited March 12, 2012 by Reasonableman

[CalgaryII]

Indebt them all again? Unbelievable.......

How to keep an uneducated majority of voters under control and fear!

As opposed to knee-jerk negativity about a Government program from those who are agenized to do so, I inquired what is the "one" good thing about this particular program.

Obviously a program such as this was not created in a vacuum, and there was some solid rationale, beyond bald politics as this Poster suggests.

Several advantages were mentioned, the primary one being the issue of were credit originates.

For the many farmers who don't have the money in a pre-emptive manner, they buy on credit now, provided by the merchants. Credit that is provided at unfavorable rates and unfavorable terms.

This program releases the Farmer from such arrangements. It gives them farmer-friendly credit access, with heavy emphasis and controls on the CC being used for their singular agriculture defined and intended purpose, as referenced in this article.

Bottom line, this does not affect farmer indebtedness up or down, just its' source.

Edited March 12, 2012 by CalgaryII

[Reasonableman]

Indebt them all again? Unbelievable.......

How to keep an uneducated majority of voters under control and fear!

As opposed to knee-jerk negativity about a Government program from those who are agenized to do so, I inquired what is the "one" good thing about this particular program.

Obviously a program such as this was not created in a vacuum, and there was some solid rationale, beyond bald politics as this Poster suggests.

Several advantages were mentioned, the primary one being the issue of were credit originates.

For the many farmers who don't have the money in a pre-emptive manner, they buy on credit now, provided by the merchants. Credit that is provided at unfavorable rates and unfavorable terms.

This program releases the Farmer from such arrangements. It gives them farmer-friendly credit access, with heavy emphasis and controls on the CC being used for their singular agriculture defined and intended purpose, as referenced in this article.

Bottom line, this does not affect farmer indebtedness up or down, just its' source.

As a knee-jerk apologist for every government program, your rhetorical reassurances hold little if any water. We shall see what we shall see. I do hope that credit-card users are also counselled on how to manage credit-card debt, and will not have to resort to loan sharks to pay off their minimum monthly balances, as is a widespread current practice among the poor with unmanageable debt.

BTW, if credit-card debtors do default, what happens?

[lovetotravel]

Indebt them all again? Unbelievable.......

How to keep an uneducated majority of voters under control and fear!

As opposed to knee-jerk negativity about a Government program from those who are agenized to do so, I inquired what is the "one" good thing about this particular program.

Obviously a program such as this was not created in a vacuum, and there was some solid rationale, beyond bald politics as this Poster suggests.

Several advantages were mentioned, the primary one being the issue of were credit originates.

For the many farmers who don't have the money in a pre-emptive manner, they buy on credit now, provided by the merchants. Credit that is provided at unfavorable rates and unfavorable terms.

This program releases the Farmer from such arrangements. It gives them farmer-friendly credit access, with heavy emphasis and controls on the CC being used for their singular agriculture defined and intended purpose, as referenced in this article.

Bottom line, this does not affect farmer indebtedness up or down, just its' source.

You obviously don't spend much time on farms in Issan. Your arguments just don't hold water. Easy to buy something with this card and then get cash back from the store, at a reduced amount. Easy to do. And no way to check if farmers are in debt or not as most have debt with loan sharks, as you correctly point out. So you're getting farmers deeper into debt. This is a good idea, but won't work.

This is a populist program by the current government to make the masses happy. And will work about as good as this one did:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/540083-thai-govts-agricultural-price-pledging-policy-has-failed/

[Robby nz]

So the farmers are only going to be allowed to buy what they are told they can buy with the cards.

Must be some kick backs in there somewhere.

They wont be allowed to withdraw cash to pay off the loan sharks so they can acheive a lower interest rate, or is the credit card interest rate not too far below the loan shark rate?

Looks like these cards will in fact just be another loan shark on the block.

[pimay11]

Indebt them all again? Unbelievable.......

How to keep an uneducated majority of voters under control and fear!

As opposed to knee-jerk negativity about a Government program from those who are agenized to do so, I inquired what is the "one" good thing about this particular program.

Obviously a program such as this was not created in a vacuum, and there was some solid rationale, beyond bald politics as this Poster suggests.

Several advantages were mentioned, the primary one being the issue of were credit originates.

For the many farmers who don't have the money in a pre-emptive manner, they buy on credit now, provided by the merchants. Credit that is provided at unfavorable rates and unfavorable terms.

This program releases the Farmer from such arrangements. It gives them farmer-friendly credit access, with heavy emphasis and controls on the CC being used for their singular agriculture defined and intended purpose, as referenced in this article.

Bottom line, this does not affect farmer indebtedness up or down, just its' source.

You obviously don't spend much time on farms in Issan. Your arguments just don't hold water. Easy to buy something with this card and then get cash back from the store, at a reduced amount. Easy to do. And no way to check if farmers are in debt or not as most have debt with loan sharks, as you correctly point out. So you're getting farmers deeper into debt. This is a good idea, but won't work.

This is a populist program by the current government to make the masses happy. And will work about as good as this one did:

http://www.thaivisa....icy-has-failed/

You are spot on. When the one million village fund vote buying scheme was introduced by Thaksin many farmers here in Esaan borrowed to the limit. They bought hand phones, motorcycles, new tv, on, and on. Not being able to keep up the payments on the motorcycles, they were reposessed.

No training was given in debt management to these poor people. They turned to loan sharks as usual to keep from losing their farms. Sad but true.

[sparebox2]

Poor farmers do not have the skill to manage wealth. Not that they are stupid, but just lack of experience.

Give credit card, they will just go shopping happy, like buy AIS mobile phone (while their land line is fine), fly AirAsia (while the bus/train is free), go stay in hotel like SC park (while relatives house is fine), etc. There is a conflict of interest here, because Yingluck give out credit card, to poor farmers, and in return some (not all) go to spend on the businesses that Yingluck family own. Ask me if there is a hidden agenda? Sama same when Thaksin give credit to Burma govt, they came to buy phone/satellite services from AIS.

[upena]

Another day older and deeper in debt...

[Reasonableman]

http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/153066501

The village fund microcredit program in Thailand : a critical evaluation Summary This study evaluated implementation of the 'Thai Village fund' (TVF), a microcredit program in Thailand. The main purpose was to provide findings to guide Thai policy makers to refine implementation of the program. The study was divided into two parts. Part one, a policy analysis attempted to determine which existing model of microcredit best described TVF and to find out which implementation features exemplify best practices for evaluating TVF. The second part evaluated implementation of the TVF. A qualitative case study approach was used to collect and analyse data from three selected villages in order to describe implementation of the TVF. Comparisons between implementation features of the TVF and the best practice features of the matched model were made to evaluate implementation of the TVF. TVF closely matched the Community-Managed Revolving Loan Fund (CMRLF) model in which seed capital was provided as a grant to self-managed community groups. The evaluation results revealed that all villages implemented the program in a similar way but with insufficient understanding of microcredit and the methodology to apply it. They formed groups of people who wanted to borrow the money rather than the lending groups of people who understood the methodology. They provided loans as rations rather as a financial service in which loan projects were used to approve loans. Setting heavy penalties and inflexible repayment conditions also excluded the poor from joining the program. This chain of weaknesses made the objectives of the program difficult to attain. The program was at best the establishment of loan funds that offer cheap loans to villagers. It is highly recommended that each village fund provides flexible loans that meet specific needs. Saving should be promoted as an integral part of the program. Provision of knowledge and advisory services about microcredit and the CMRLF methodology should be organised to make such improvements possible.

[Buchholz]

Indebt them all again? Unbelievable.......

How to keep an uneducated majority of voters under control and fear!

As opposed to knee-jerk negativity about a Government program from those who are agenized to do so, I inquired what is the "one" good thing about this particular program.

Obviously a program such as this was not created in a vacuum, and there was some solid rationale, beyond bald politics as this Poster suggests.

Several advantages were mentioned, the primary one being the issue of were credit originates.

For the many farmers who don't have the money in a pre-emptive manner, they buy on credit now, provided by the merchants. Credit that is provided at unfavorable rates and unfavorable terms.

This program releases the Farmer from such arrangements. It gives them farmer-friendly credit access, with heavy emphasis and controls on the CC being used for their singular agriculture defined and intended purpose, as referenced in this article.

Bottom line, this does not affect farmer indebtedness up or down, just its' source.

As a knee-jerk apologist for every government program, your rhetorical reassurances hold little if any water. We shall see what we shall see. I do hope that credit-card users are also counselled on how to manage credit-card debt, and will not have to resort to loan sharks to pay off their minimum monthly balances, as is a widespread current practice among the poor with unmanageable debt.

BTW, if credit-card debtors do default, what happens?

The debt is paid off by using the accounts of the other new credit card recipients

Thaksin Offers Easy Credit, Credit Cards For Taxi Drivers

228 replies

11,897 views

.

Edited March 12, 2012 by Buchholz

[asdecas]

Dear oh dear, words fail me!

[jonclark]

The farmers should have a kick ass Songkran this year anyway with some nice new credit cards to use.

[OzMick]

So the farmers are only going to be allowed to buy what they are told they can buy with the cards.

Must be some kick backs in there somewhere.

They wont be allowed to withdraw cash to pay off the loan sharks so they can acheive a lower interest rate, or is the credit card interest rate not too far below the loan shark rate?

Looks like these cards will in fact just be another loan shark on the block.

In most places loan shark interest would be far higher. Interest rates quotes as higher percentages per month, or even week, depending on your assets.

[Joel Barlow]

The modern form of slavery... debt slavery.

[toenail]

Free "i-Pads" (generic one)...credit cards... maybe a free cell phone next. What do the rest of the province people get living outside of Isaan??? (nothing)

[Reasonableman]

Free "i-Pads" (generic one)...credit cards... maybe a free cell phone next. What do the rest of the province people get living outside of Isaan??? (nothing)

They get to pay for it.

[whitejaguar]

hahaha, giving a Thai farmer a credit card is like giving a Taliban a machine gun and say:"Don't shoot!".

[lannarebirth]

Indebt them all again? Unbelievable.......

How to keep an uneducated majority of voters under control and fear!

As opposed to knee-jerk negativity about a Government program from those who are agenized to do so, I inquired what is the "one" good thing about this particular program.

Obviously a program such as this was not created in a vacuum, and there was some solid rationale, beyond bald politics as this Poster suggests.

Several advantages were mentioned, the primary one being the issue of were credit originates.

For the many farmers who don't have the money in a pre-emptive manner, they buy on credit now, provided by the merchants. Credit that is provided at unfavorable rates and unfavorable terms.

This program releases the Farmer from such arrangements. It gives them farmer-friendly credit access, with heavy emphasis and controls on the CC being used for their singular agriculture defined and intended purpose, as referenced in this article.

Bottom line, this does not affect farmer indebtedness up or down, just its' source.

For people that have been here more than a couple of months, we've seen this all before. ****Spoiler Alert**** It ends badly. <Snip!>

Edited March 12, 2012 by metisdead
Flame snipped from reply.

[lannarebirth]

The modern form of slavery... debt slavery.

When were they not debt slaves? First to the nak leng and chao por, now to national institutions. The greatest lie perpetrated here in the past 6 years is that Red Shirts are the common people. They are in fact the people the common people must trade with daily. They sell their rice to them, They get their credit from them, they give their daughters to them. It is hard not to hate the people that support this movement. I give some of them the benefit of the doubt for being new here and thinking they are supporting the righteous aims of the poor. After 6 months I just include them amongst the malevolent expoiters of those people.

Edited March 12, 2012 by lannarebirth

[lannarebirth]

Poor farmers do not have the skill to manage wealth. Not that they are stupid, but just lack of experience.

Give credit card, they will just go shopping happy, like buy AIS mobile phone (while their land line is fine), fly AirAsia (while the bus/train is free), go stay in hotel like SC park (while relatives house is fine), etc. There is a conflict of interest here, because Yingluck give out credit card, to poor farmers, and in return some (not all) go to spend on the businesses that Yingluck family own. Ask me if there is a hidden agenda? Sama same when Thaksin give credit to Burma govt, they came to buy phone/satellite services from AIS.

Do you remember the last scheme like this? Surveys were done that showed folks in Roi Et were spending 57% of their monthly income on mobile phone bills to AIS.

Edited March 12, 2012 by lannarebirth

[Katipo]

Indebt them all again? Unbelievable.......

How to keep an uneducated majority of voters under control and fear!

As opposed to knee-jerk negativity about a Government program from those who are agenized to do so, I inquired what is the "one" good thing about this particular program.

Obviously a program such as this was not created in a vacuum, and there was some solid rationale, beyond bald politics as this Poster suggests.

Several advantages were mentioned, the primary one being the issue of were credit originates.

For the many farmers who don't have the money in a pre-emptive manner, they buy on credit now, provided by the merchants. Credit that is provided at unfavorable rates and unfavorable terms.

This program releases the Farmer from such arrangements. It gives them farmer-friendly credit access, with heavy emphasis and controls on the CC being used for their singular agriculture defined and intended purpose, as referenced in this article.

Bottom line, this does not affect farmer indebtedness up or down, just its' source.

If that is how it works, then I whole heartedly agree. What is much more likely however, is that most farmers will 'max out' their credit-card and then proceed to borrow more money from the usual lenders/sharks.

[lannarebirth]

Indebt them all again? Unbelievable.......

How to keep an uneducated majority of voters under control and fear!

As opposed to knee-jerk negativity about a Government program from those who are agenized to do so, I inquired what is the "one" good thing about this particular program.

Obviously a program such as this was not created in a vacuum, and there was some solid rationale, beyond bald politics as this Poster suggests.

Several advantages were mentioned, the primary one being the issue of were credit originates.

For the many farmers who don't have the money in a pre-emptive manner, they buy on credit now, provided by the merchants. Credit that is provided at unfavorable rates and unfavorable terms.

This program releases the Farmer from such arrangements. It gives them farmer-friendly credit access, with heavy emphasis and controls on the CC being used for their singular agriculture defined and intended purpose, as referenced in this article.

Bottom line, this does not affect farmer indebtedness up or down, just its' source.

If that is how it works, then I whole heartedly agree. What is much more likely however, is that most farmers will 'max out' their credit-card and then proceed to borrow more money from the usual lenders/sharks.

And then march on the capitol for loan forgiveness. Thailand, which was one of the stronger economies in the world only a year ago, could be Greece in a just a few short years.

[anterian]

With educated users this could be a good move, with economically illiterate people this is a very foolish move. It is similar to the previous initiative by Thaksin to make cheap loans to people to buy their homes, in my village there are around 20 empty houses (about 10%), where people could not keep up payments, defaulted and fled. Now they are toxic assets held by the bank.

It is clear that the people who introduce these schemes to help the poor simply do not understand the psychology of the poor.

Perhaps the fact that "the BAAC will closely monitor the credit usage." may make a difference, we shall see.

[Buchholz]

Free "i-Pads" (generic one)...credit cards... maybe a free cell phone next. What do the rest of the province people get living outside of Isaan??? (nothing)

They are eligible for a tax rebate if they purchase a new 5 million baht villa.

.

[lannarebirth]

With educated users this could be a good move, with economically illiterate people this is a very foolish move. It is similar to the previous initiative by Thaksin to make cheap loans to people to buy their homes, in my village there are around 20 empty houses (about 10%), where people could not keep up payments, defaulted and fled. Now they are toxic assets held by the bank.

It is clear that the people who introduce these schemes to help the poor simply do not understand the psychology of the poor.

Perhaps the fact that "the BAAC will closely monitor the credit usage." may make a difference, we shall see.

I couldn't disagree more. These people ABSOLUTELY understand the psychology of the poor, that's why they take their cut on the front end. The mistake in your thinking is to believe those people were well intentioned.

[Ijustwannateach]

Woo-hoo! Money is FREEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

[Lite Beer]

Farmers nationwide to begin using credit cards on 1 April

BANGKOK, 12 March 2012 (NNT) – Starting on April 1, farmers across Thailand will be able to start using credit cards to purchase production materials.

Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) President Luck Wajananawatch has revealed that on April 1, the bank will start the distribution of 1 million credit cards to farmers across the country, following a successful trial run among 5,500 farmers in five pilot provinces. Mr. Luck added that another 1 million credit cards will also be distributed in 2013.

The program, which will be officially launched on March 20, allows holders of the credit cards to purchase key inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides, and plant seeds from the 2,000 approved stores. However, the Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister has assigned the BAAC to explore options to add other items to the program, such as rice, farming gear, water pumps, gasoline for farm products transportation and machinery use.

At present, the bank boasts over 4 million in the number of clients, 2.7 million among whom are farmers. Mr. Luck, however, has expressed concerns that farmers might misuse their credit cards for the wrong objectives; for example, taking out cash instead of purchasing production key inputs. Thus, all BAAC branch managers have been instructed to strictly monitor the use of the credit cards. Those found to have breached the rules and regulations, be they farmers or shopkeepers, will be disqualified from the program as well as blacklisted.

-- NNT 2012-03-12

[Buchholz]

Farmers nationwide to begin using credit cards on April 1

ap·ro·pos

/aprəˈpō/

Adjective: Very appropriate to a particular situation

Edited March 12, 2012 by Buchholz