Thailand

Implementation of Retail Credit Business at Government Savings Bank Thailand

Project description

The project aimed at the implementation of a retail business with regard to credit. In the early nineties the GSB had ample liquid resources that were supposed to be used in a profitable and at the same time socially beneficial way. Traditionally GSB serves the poorer strata of the population.

Within the first phase of the project market conditions have been analysed in detail, whereas in the second phase existing products have been streamlined and new products have been created especially with respect to mobile and stationary vendors. This target group so far was largely dependent on informal “money lenders” that were charging very high interest rates.

With the introduction of simple credit scoring techniques GSB was able to effectively tap this market segment; this model also proofed viable during the 1996 Asian financial crisis. Due to the project the share of loans as reported in the balance sheet total increased from 10% to 41.6%. Lending to the target groups continued after the end of the project, during the summer of 2001 more than 60,000 loan applications were processed.

Services provided

• Introduction of different lending products geared to stationary and mobile vendors, state employees and SME
• Introduction of housing loans
• Training with regard to retail lending operations, credit scoring and rating, marketing (some of the persons trained have subsequently filled in high ranking positions at GSB)