GSB promises to continue backing SMEs as priority
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GOVERNMENT Savings Bank (GSB) says it is committed to continuously supporting small and medium-sized enterprises as it targets net profit of Bt17.8 billion with loan growth of 6-8 per cent loan this year.
“Lending growth this year is continuing to grow. We aim to grow in accordance with the industry while supporting SMEs under government policy. Importantly, GSB now has the lion’s share of about 20 per cent in total value of retail loans for SMEs,” GSB president Chatchai Payuhanaveechai told the media recently.
SMEs are core clients for the bank, accounting for more than 90 per cent of its customers. Therefore, GSB continues to support them through a number of financial products and services. These include extension of a second tranche of soft loans totalling Bt50 billion to provide them with working capital, Baan Pracha Rath housing loans, relief measures to support drought-hit farmers and venture-capital funds for SMEs start-ups.
Under the SME start-ups project, GSB has joined the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Bank of Thailand and Krungthai Bank in establishing venture-capital funds worth Bt2 billion at each bank. Under that scheme, GSB will extend loans worth Bt2 billion to participating SMEs. SME start-ups are required to invest no more than Bt10 million. To support the government policy to develop the grass-roots economy, Chatchai said GSB would set up a unit to help low-income earners access finances without resorting to underground lending.
GSB estimates that more than 1.3 million people are burdened with underground loans.
“GSB will work with community enterprises or community networks as financial guarantor for borrowers, and the bank will charge about 1 per cent month, far less than loan sharks charge,” he said.
The bank also announced it would establish the “GSB Grass-roots Economic Research Centre” as a national think-tank to conduct a survey and provide essential information, forecasts and analysis to the public as well as reporting to the government.
In collaboration with the Centre for Economic and Business Forecasting at the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, the think-tank will develop a quarterly macroeconomic model to follow the business and economic situations and analyse important issues, particularly related to grass-roots people and SMEs, with a “Grass-roots Economic Sentiment Index”.
