Growing net profits of Thailand's commercial banks slated

BANGKOK, August 15 (TNA) - The Bank of Thailand (BOT) reports that net profits of commercial banks in the country rose by almost 16 per cent in the second quarter of this year, thanks mainly to their growing revenues from lending interests. BOT Senior Director for Financial Institutions Strategy Department Daranee Saeju (ดารณี แซ่จู) told journalists of the update on August 14, stating that net profits of commercial banks in Thailand stood at about 57 billion baht totally in the second quarter of this year, or a 15.9 per cent increase from the first quarter, despite a drop, for the first time, in their revenues from cash transfer service fees at their counters during the same period due to the increasingly popular no-fee Internet banking and mobile banking services through their clients' smart phones at a total of 224 million cases, or about 90 per cent of the overall cash transfer cases, at the end of the second quarter. Daranee acknowledged loans offered by commercial banks in Thailand expanded by 5.4 per cent during the April-June 2018 period, from 4.7 per cent during the January-March period despite a 1.8 per cent drop in their loans given to large-scaled businesses that had mostly mobilized their funds from securities or debt instruments instead. According to the senior director, the Thai central bank has forecast a 4-6 per cent year-on-year expansion on average of bank loans in the country in 2018 as earlier targeted. Besides, the quality of bank loans should be up this year, as the proportion of non-performing loans (NPLs) in the Thai banking sector remained stable at 2.92-2.93 per cent during the first and the second quarters and should be further improving in the coming months in line with the recovering Thai economy. The senior BOT official cautioned, however, that risk factors remain for Thailand's commercial banks in terms of an increase in their NPLs from housing and business loans they have approved to their individual clients and small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) due to a rising trend of lending interest rates, as well as rising costs from their operations of digital platforms. (TNA)