CEO Jean Pascal Tricoire told a gathering of 5,000 top executives and customers at Schneider’s recent Innovation Summit 2018 in Paris that the Internet has already connected about 5 billion people world-wide as exemplified by users of Facebook, LinkedIn, Uber and the likes.

In the IoT era, as many as 50 billion objects could be connected globally by the year 2020, he said.

Thailand is one of the Asian markets eyed by Schneider Electric, especially with regard to the country’s Thailand 4.0 initiative aimed at digitalizing the economy and society.

The IoT platform allows industries, factories, and buildings, including power plants, production of consumer goods, hotels, healthcare, and other sectors, to go digital to boost productivity and enhance customer experience while reducing energy and other costs.

According to Tricoire, the world has witnessed the “Internet of people” since the 1990’s. “Now, it’s the IoTs (or the Internet in its second phase connecting machines and devices),” he said.

With the IoT platform, called Ecostruxure by Schneider, management and maintenance of assets and devices such as personal gadgets, home appliances and industrial machines will rely on data and predictive analytics to deliver smart and pro-active choices.

Schneider’s ecosystem focuses on buildings, power grids, factories, data centres, homes, and infrastructure using cloud and edge computing as well as machine learning and other artificial intelligence capabilities.

The results are connected products with edge control and mobile apps.

For example, the platform for factory automation and energy system management increases productivity resulting in less energy and other costs as data is used in real time to deliver smart and pro-active choices in running factories or buildings’ energy consumption system.

At present, power consumption in the transportation sector represents the largest portion, accounting for as much as 30 per cent of the world’s total energy consumption.

Tricoire said solar energy will likely be cheaper than fossil sources by 2030.

This will boost the decentralisation of electricity generation resulting in a rapid growth of micro-grid installation using digital technology to reduce power production cost by as much as 15-20 per cent.

According to the CEO, digitalisation and related businesses accounted for 60 per cent of Schnieder’s total 2017 revenues of 25 billion euros. This was largely driven by the Ecostruxure platform for IoT and connected machines in six major domains including data centres, buildings, IT, energy production.

The firm currently works with more than 15,000 engineers to provide both software and hardware plus services which include augmented reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) programmes for safer asset maintenance and personnel training.

At present, only 10 per cent of data is used but the data usage ratio will rise much further if more cloud computing service is adopted to bring back more data to mobile phones and devices for pro-active maintenance of machines and other assets.

He cited the Ecostruxure for buildings as an example as it empowers employers to boost productivity and save costs since an estimated 90 per cent of a building’s cost is related to people.

Such an eco-system makes it possible to ensure that a building always has a good ventilation system as this will lead to less sick leaves among workers, thus boosting the overall productivity.

Hotels and hospitals can also benefit from better guest and patient experience as well as comfort resulting in less complaints on Trip Advisor for hotels.

“In Building Operation 2.0, which is an open system software, there is the building advisor for diagnostics, analytics and insights. These tools result in 29 per cent less maintenance and 33 per cent less complaints for hotels and hospitals as we use sensors, controllers and other devices to collect data for pro-active management of the buildings,” he said.

The data from power plants and other high-value assets can also be connected with the experts via sensors so as to utilise an analytic software that can predict failures for pro-active maintenance.

Apisak said the tax measures, which were approved by the Cabinet on Tuesday, are merely tools to enable a more convenient merger process in order to strengthen the commercial banks.

He dismissed speculation that the measures were aimed at forcing state-backed banks to merge. Rather, they are there to facilitate and support any merger deals that may arise. Shares of Krungthai Bank and TMB Bank have come under the spotlight after the Cabinet announcement.

“The measures relate to taxable transactions as a result of mergers. One part will see tax waived to facilitate mergers. Another part involves the deduction of expenses incurred from costs associated with a merger deal,” he said.

“Thai banks are now strong but cannot compete with banks in the region in terms of size.

“When banks are small, it’s difficult for them to find business opportunities and this recently approved tax measure is introduced to encourage mergers. But whether or not a merger will occur, it depends on each bank to decide.”

Elsewhere in the financial sector, the Bank of Thailand (BOT) and the Ministry of Finance have between them issued 16 notifications to regulate the country’s payments system in an effort to help ensure operators’ compliance with a new law.

The new law also covers foreign operators. Singapore-based e-commerce operator Lazada, through its Lazada Wallet subsidiary, has been granted a licence for payment services.

In addition to the 16 notifications, the BOT and the ministry have reduced the minimum requirement for the registered capital of service-providers in the fast-growing electronic money (e-money) sphere, from Bt200 million to Bt100 million, to allow smaller operators to compete for business.

Siritida Panomwon Na Ayudhya, assistant governor for payment systems policy and financial technology group at the BOT, said that with the notifications, operators seeking to provide four types of services must get permission from the central bank. This requirement reflects the potential for any problems that may arise to have a broad impact on the financial system.

The service areas that are mandated for BOT approval are: credit, debit and ATM cards; e-money; payments; and money transfers. Other services that are less widely used will not trigger the requirement for BOT permission, but the providers of these services must be registered with government agencies or have notified the central bank about them.

The 16 notifications fall under the Payment System Act, B.E. 2017 and were announced in the Government Gazette on Tuesday.

Alongside the minimum requirement of Bt100 million in registered capital for e-money service providers, the amount for service providers of general payments has been set at Bt50 million, and for providers of services for utility payments it is Bt10 million. The latter is also the mandated amount for providers of payments services via electronics means.

“Reducing the registered capital requirement for e-money service providers is aimed at allowing new operators, particularly smaller ones, to compete. Now, about 20 operators provide e-money services,” Siritida said.

Licensing requirements

She said that, with the announcement of the notifications, some 100 existing service providers that are licensed for this business are required to have their licences amended to incorporate the new criteria. They must act within 120 days or by August 14. Around 10 prospective operators are moving through the application process for licences, Siritida said.

Foreign operators seeking to provide payment services to Thais are required to register with the Thai authorities and submit their applications in line with the licence criteria, Siritida said.

The Payment System Act, B.E. 2560, integrates three laws related to the payment system into one in order to facilitate operators, lessen the legal burden and make doing business easier, while encouraging the application of technology and innovations to further boost the development of the payment system.

“After the TrueMove H incident, the BOT had discussions with True Money on customer data care and there’s no problem,” said Siritida, referring to a reported data breach at a partner of True Move H.

“TrueMove H and True Money are not the same company. The BOT inspects True Money every year and there’s no problem.”

She said that the uptake of services under the government’s PromptPay scheme is continuing to rise.

By Monday, about 40 million users of the scheme had been registered. Of the total, some 27 million did so via their personal identification card numbers and 13 million by their mobile phone numbers.

PromptPay’s accumulated money transfers amounted to 173 million transactions worth about Bt700 billion.

Adirek Sripratak, chairman of the executive committee at CPF, said the company agreed to buy 4,666,667 newly issued ordinary shares in Camanor, representing 40 per cent of the total capital stock, for US$17.5 million. The deal is expected to be completed within a month of the signing of the investment agreement.

Camanor engages in shrimp farming and primary processing businesses in Brazil. Its main products include fresh and frozen processed shrimp distributed through domestic wholesalers and via exports to markets such as France. It has also developed its own shrimp farming technology known as AquaScience?, which is a closed operating system that enables shrimp to be raised in a high density environment without the use of chemicals or antibiotics. This results in a high productivity rate per farm area.

“This is a synergistic investment that will strengthen CPF’s competitiveness in the shrimp business in terms of feed production, genetics improvement and shrimp-processing capacity under the company’s vision ‘Kitchen of the World’ by applying Camanor’s experience in shrimp farming technology and CPF’s expertise in shrimp genetics,” Adirek said.

Adirek said the new partnership in Brazil would benefit CPF by extending its businesses into areas such as feed and hatcheries.

The expansion is aimed at serving the shrimp industry and boosting local consumption, Adirek said. The company’s total capacity in shrimp production averages about 100,000 tonnes a year, which is not enough to meet domestic demand.

Brazil is a major source of agricultural materials required for the production of shrimp feed and is also a high value market with a large population and economy. It will also provide geographic diversification for CPF in its shrimp production operations.

CPF’s share price yesterday closed at Bt23.60, up 0.85 per cent.

To drive the company’s hire-purchase loan growth, the company plans to open 50 new branches nationwide this year in addition to the 200 existing outlets.

The company will keep its non-performing loans at not more than 1.9 per cent of its total outstanding loans, he said.

Highway Co Ltd is a hire-purchase firm under the Somwang Ngan Sang Dai brand. The company is subsidiary of Tisco Financial Group.

VT Group will invest Bt10 million in an automation system to support its garment business.

The firm expects to generate Bt1.8 billion in revenue by the end of the year.

Chalumpon Lotharukpong, managing director of VT Group, said the group will acquire an automation system to monitor and manage the garment production line in real-time to support its garment manufacturing facility in Bangkok

The new system would improve productivity and quality of outerwear, casual wear and sportswear products ranging from jackets, functional clothes, ski wear to jogging suits, shorts, and vests.

The firm exports 98 per cent of its products to the US, Europe and Japan with the balance distributed via original equipment manufacturer (OEM) in the domestic market.

The group now has three manufacturing facilities located in Bangkok, Maha Sarakham province and Yangon, Myanmar. It has the capacity to produce 182,000 pieces of garment products per month. It will futher invest in its factory in Myanmar to meet the rising demand of the local market.

We want to become a world class designer and manufacturer of sportswear and outerwear in the global market,” said Chalumpon.

He said the garment industry has been growing slowly and the firm will offer high-quality products to the global market in anticipation of an increase of 5 -7 per cent in its annual revenue to Bt1.8 billion by the end of this year.