SCB's new team gears up for future amid management restructuring
The new management team of Siam Commercial Bank will focus on maintaining its tradition of outperforming the banking industry and find talented people to help accomplish this by riding changing technologies, including digital banking.
The annual general meeting of shareholders yesterday officially appointed Arthid Nanthawithaya as chief executive officer and deputy chairman of the executive committee, while Yol Phokasub has been named the new president.
Yol said SCB had outperformed the industry in past years, so it must continue to perform even as it prepares for changing times.
“Banking in the next five to 10 years will change dramatically. Though the infrastructure at present is ready to accommodate the changes, the challenge for the bank is that competitors will be equally well prepared. Therefore we have to have a new generation of successors and talented people,” he said.
At the meeting, shareholders were also asked about financial compensation of Bt1.5 billion to King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang (KMITL). Vichit Suraphongchai, chairman of the executive committee, told shareholders that the bank would book Bt1.5 billion as expenses for the first quarter and expected to spend at least two or three years recovering the embezzlement-related losses in this case.
The bank executives earlier shared their business direction, including the embezzlement issue, with analysts. The analysts noted in their research that the compensation of Bt1.5 billion would affect the bank’s net profit in the first quarter.
SCB will book compensation of Bt1.5 billion as special expenses in the first quarter, while the bank will make an additional loss provision for expected non-performing used-car loans.
According to Phillip Capital Securities, SCB is expected to report net profit of Bt12.2 billion in the first quarter, a drop of 7.2 per cent year on year and down 0.4 per cent from the final quarter of 2014.
Yol said on the sidelines of the meeting that SCB’s overall loan growth this year was expected to be 3 per cent, the same figure as the estimated growth of gross domestic product this year. The consumption slowdown has had an impact on retail clients. However, SCB is making more housing loans, and lending in this category could outperform the expected overall mortgage-market growth of 8-10 per cent.
Auto lending is not expected to grow much. But SCB might have gained market share in the first quarter after captive leasing companies toned down their promotions. Last year, captive leasing companies were serious competitors for new car loans in a bid to help car dealers release inventories.
