Tisco plans to reduce ratio of self-employed mortgage loans 

Bank president Sakchai Peechapat said yesterday that Tisco’s housing-loan portfolio was only around Bt1 billion, and half of the borrowers were self-employed. The SMC wants the bank to increase the proportion of salaried borrowers to reduce risk.
“The SMC wants the bank to increase the proportion of salaried customers to 60-70 per cent to ensure that when it [the corporation] purchases the loan portfolio from us, it will have fewer worries about unexpected risk,” he said.
With the small portfolio, making non performing loan of houisng loan is likley to higher than the market, which it was 4 -5 per cent.
Normally, Tisco Bank sells its housing loans to the SMC as part of the bank’s policy to support the role of the secondary-mortgage market.
Sakchai said the upcoming inte?gration of Standard Chartered Bank (Thai) and Tisco would result in a housing-loan portfolio of between Bt25 billion and Bt26 billion, a significant amount.
Last month, Tisco Financial Group, the holding company of Tisco Bank, announced the acquisition the retail loan portfolio from Standard Chartered Bank (Thai), then worth Bt41.6 billion. 
Sakchai said the value of the StanChart portfolio was not certain yet because during the process of acquisition, new loan could be booked and debts repaid, which could changed the figure.
Earlier, Tisco Financial Group noted that the assets of Bt41.6 billion would represent 15-per-cent asset growth for Tisco Bank in 2017.
The integration of StanChart assets into Tisco group is expected to be seen in the second half of this year. 
Group chief executive Suthas Ruangmanamongkol said Tisco’s organic lending growth was expected to be flat, from a drop of 5.6 per cent in 2016.
This year, Tisco Financial Group will focus on retail loans, especially car-title loans from Tisco Bank and its subsidiary Somwang Ngernsangdai. While, lending to car dealers will have to wait the policy of auto manufacturers because it will influence to the vehicle intentory at each dealer, he said.
Corporate loans are not expect to see much activity because private investment is not showing positive signs, so public investment will still be the key driver of the Thai econo?my, he added.
Even though Tisco Financial Group posted a 5.6-per-cent decline in lending last year, its net profit grew by 17.8 per cent to Bt5 billion.
Suthas said that the healthy profit was due to effective management of loan loss provisions and funding costs.