KTB staff 'get behind goal to boost profit'

In the first year of Vorapak’s term in office, he moved up a transformation plan scheduled for next year to July this year, as the bank wants to grow aggressively, he said.
Vorapak believes the transformation will stimulate employees to aspire to higher achievements. After implementing workshops under the transformation plan, all divisions have the same goal: that KTB’s net profit must triple from Bt23.52 billion in 2012.
Even though KTB is a state-run bank, its asset value is the highest in the industry at Bt2.4 trillion and the lending portfolio is the second place of more than Bt1.6 trillion. By the end of this year the loan portfolio will be Bt1.7 trillion. In terms of profit, however, KTB is only in fourth place among the top banks.
He said the capital base of Bt200 billion was sufficient for aggressive growth over the next three years.
He emphasised that the bank preferred expanding profitability rather than assets.
He said such aggressive growth did not mean that KTB would take market share from other banks as it fully understands that the economic situation and the high level of household debt are concerns for regulators.
“What we are going to do is bring our market share that was eaten by other banks in the past years back to us,” he said.
 “We will expand our product cross-selling to existing customers, either in wholesale or SME |banking. KTB has room to drive profitability from its existing resources and existing customers,” he said.
Weidt Nuchjalearn, first senior executive vice president, added that KTB has a large customer base at 18 million accounts but only 10 per cent were buying its other products, so if the bank can increase cross-selling by 20-30 per cent, profit will increase as well.