CIMBT to tap into loan growth potential in the South
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CIMB Thai Bank (CIMBT) has targeted southern Thailand as the key region in the country for increasing its small and medium-sized enterprise loan growth after seeing huge potential for several industries there.
Jiratchyuth Amyongka, the head of the Commercial Banking Group at CIMB, said the lender would move to tap southern SMEs this year and next year, with the attractive sectors including rubber, palm, agricultural-related products, tourism and hospitality.
“We will tap customers by sector and CIMBT will use the Asean Economic Community to help our customers in the South expand to other markets in the region,” he said.
Many SMEs in the South are interested in expanding to emerging markets such as Malaysia and Indonesia, he said.
Of the bank’s SMEs lending portfolio of Bt55 billion, southern SMEs account for 30 per cent. Based on its southern strategy, it expects its lending portfolio to grow to Bt60 billion in the near future.
In 2015, the bank expects its Commercial Banking Group lending to expand up to 9 per cent, while it also aims to increase its fee income – with trade finance, cash management and cross-border trade the main areas generating fee income.
CIMBT said the economic slowdown had affected its SMEs customers and it regularly checked their financial status in order to offer solutions to them.
It forecast its non-performing-loan ratio this year would be the lowest in the banking industry at about 1.7 per cent. It was lower than 1 per cent at the end of last year.
Meanwhile, a latex rubber manufacturer in Krabi and CIMBT customer, the Sritong Group of Companies, plans to produce more rubber gloves for supply throughout Asia, said Jadsada Ruksritong, the chief executive officer of the group.
He said the group’s revenue from exports to Asian countries was currently small compared with US and European revenue but it aimed to export products to Asean to have more diversification and consequently less business risk. He believes people in Asean will also have greater purchasing power.
“If we can tap Asean, revenue for the group could expand by no less than 5 times in the next two to three years from existing revenue of Bt10 billion,” he said.
