Thai banks' outlook stable: Moody's
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The outlook on Thailand's banking system remains stable as it has been since 2010, said Moody's Investors Service.
"While economic growth has been slowing moderately, Thai banks are well positioned to withstand potential asset-quality challenges because of their strong capitalisation levels and increasing provisioning coverage," said Simon Chen, a Moody's assistant vice president and analyst.
"In addition, we expect loans to grow at a more moderate rate, after four years of loan growth having outpaced deposit growth. The slower rate of loan growth will contain and even perhaps reverse the recent deterioration in the banks' loan-to-deposit ratios," added Chen.
Moody's conclusions were published in its just-released "Thailand Banking System Outlook", which expresses Moody's expectation of how bank creditworthiness will evolve in this system over the next 12-18 months.
Banking system outlooks provide a forward-looking assessment of banking sectors against five broad categories of credit drivers: operating environment; asset quality and capital; funding and liquidity; profitability and efficiency; and system support. For the Thai banking system, Moody's assesses each category as stable.
