Fee income, NIM boost TMB's 2011 net past Bt4 bn

Boontuck Wungcharoen, the bank’s chief executive officer, said yesterday that NIM expanded significantly to 2.41 per cent in 2011 from 2.05 per cent in 2010 and fee-based income surged by 14 per cent.

Loans were up 12.4 per cent, but the bank remains cautious on extending credit in a bid to preserve liquidity, he said.

The rate of non-performing loans improved to 5.67 per cent from 8.26 per cent. 

In 2011, the bank provisioned Bt1.45 billion to raise its loan-loss reserve to Bt3.1 billion to reflect domestic and international economic outlooks. That brought its coverage ratio up to 73 per cent from 57 per cent at end-2010.

Deposits rose 9.6 per cent thanks to the TMB No Fixed product, branch expansion and Internet banking.

“We still offer the new platform of Internet banking including the new brand of ‘ME by TMB’ to cash in on the changing lifestyles of Thai customers,” he said.

TMB yesterday introduced ME by TMB, which operates under the concept of “Do It Yourself to Get More” for customers who prefer to manage their accounts via the electronic channel. 

Tamara Van Den Ban, managing director of ME, said the new service had only one savings-deposit product offering 3.5-per-cent interest. It is expected to draw Bt10 billion in deposits in 50,000 accounts this year. ME by TMB aims to capture a 10-per-cent share of the lifestyle-banking market within three years and eventually become the leader in this segment.

ME can offer higher returns because it has no personnel, branch or other expenses that traditional banks have, she said.

ME plans to introduce more multipurpose products in terms of deposits and loans. The platform of products are aimed at differentiating TMB from other traditional banks.

The target group is online customers who prefer to manage their personal transactions by themselves and want to earn higher returns than they get from traditional banks, she said.