Payong Srivanich, KTB president and chief executive officer, said that the bank will spend a total of Bt12 billion in 2019 as it develops digital services over five years. The bank seeks to lower overall costs as customers shift to online transactions through online baking and mobile applications.

This year, the bank will move toward “invisible banking”, as it targets to reduce the number of branches to 1,000 and its employees to 21,000 over the next two to three years, he said. KTB now has about 1,200 branches with 22,000 staff.

The bank insisted that cutting its workforce is not in the plans as face-to-face interactions with customers will remain necessary, and workforce reductions can largely be contained to usual retirements, early retirements and staff resigning to pursue other occupations, he said.

KTB will train employees in new technologies and contemporary tools as the bank shifts its workplaces to cope with the emerging cashless society.

As customers switch to greater use of online banking services, fees-based income from fund transfers and bill payments is expected to decline. For every Bt1 million in fee-based income lost, the bank is required to cut costs by Bt4-Bt5 million to avoid lowering its performance, he said.

KTB targets to this year increase to 10 million the number of customers using “Krungthai NEXT” mobile app. In January, there were about four million customers using it.

Payong said that the bank had previously moved to continuous improvement of its inspection system and had upgraded the security and banking services to deal with modern crimes. Meanwhile, it and gradually established smart card readers to inspect identification cards and electronically linked them to the Ministry of Interior’s household registration for branch transactions.

In the next two weeks, the smart card readers will be set up at all provincial branches after having already been rolled out in all Bangkok branches.

The bank also plans to use a facial recognition system, in addition to CCTV, to reduce fraud.

For this year, KTB will increase its focus on extending loans to SMEs given that the high uncertainty of the Thai economy has resulted in a slowdown of investments by large businesses, Payong said.

The bank has set its loan growth target at over 5 per cent, based on expected Thai economic growth of 4.1 per cent this year. SME loans are expected to rise 6-7 per cent with a greater focus on processed products over agricultural products to lower risks.

“Although our loan growth target of 5 per cent this year is in line with the estimated economic growth of 4.1 per cent, we have to take cautions as it’s a year of high fluctuations and uncertainties, Payong said.

Large business loans are expected to grow gradually, unlike in recent years, on the belief that large-size enterprises seem to be slowing down their investment, he said.

Loan growth this year is estimated to come mainly from retail customers. The bank will lessen loans to the public sector due to high costs.

KTB’s non-performing loan is targeted at less than Bt100 billion this year, lower than the end of last year. The bank expects to set its provision at an amount close to or less than last year’s figure in order to maintain its strength and stability.

The bank’s coverage ratio is estimated at 125-128 per cent, compared to the previous year’s 125 per cent.

WHA Corporation Public Company Limited (WHA Group) has announced its 2018 total revenue of Bt11.62 billion, inclusive of share of profit from investments in associates and joint ventures, with a net profit of Bt2.90 billion.

The company’s normalised net profit, excluding the FX impact and extraordinary items, stood at Bt2.91 billion, rising by 2 per cent as a result of an increase in share of profit in associations from power business as well as a surge in water utilities income.

WHA Group CEO Jareeporn Jarukornsakul revealed that the board approved a 2018 dividend of Bt0.0833 per share, and set an XD date on May 9, 2019 for dividend payment on May 28, 2019. Overall business growth in 2019 is expected to reach more than 70 per cent.

Jareeporn said that the estimate was based on an increase in share of profit from its power business after the completion of five power plants in Q2 2017, bringing the company’s equity MW under operation to 521MW at the end of 2018.

There also was an increase in demand for water utilities in power plants, resulting in an income increase. In addition, the company improved its efficiency to create value-added products and initiate new product lines, as well as increase the sale proportion of industrial water and clarified water to enhance profit margin. Furthermore, financial expenses decreased significantly by 27 per cent.

Hilton digs into mindset of Chinese travellers

Hilton has recently revealed results from consumer research projects undertaken by global information and measurement houses, Kantar and Nielsen. By exploring Chinese consumers’ mindset and their rapidly-growing appetite for quality travel experiences, the research paves the way for the introduction of the new Canopy by Hilton brand in China in order to meet rising local demand for lifestyle-driven tourism. The insights were released last week in a Beijing press conference and demonstrate Hilton’s commitment to innovation based on customer engagement.

Through a survey of 1,000 Chinese citizens across different age groups and regions who have stayed in an upscale hotel at least once, the Kantar study identified four new key traits that have emerged among today’s Chinese travellers: 83 per cent of respondents are “keen to explore” different local cultures; 82 per cent enjoy “self-pampering”; 77 per cent are “open” to socialising with locals; and 77 per cent are “self-expressive” by seeking out new experiences.

These traits demonstrate an appetite to dive deep into local culture and pay a premium for rewarding experiences. Travellers also expect hotels to feature a blend of culture, comfort, socialisation and personalisation.

Additionally, they seek places where unique spaces, special gourmet experiences and customised services come together to define a distinctive lifestyle.

Against this backdrop, Canopy by Hilton was thoroughly researched to fill a void in the marketplace, with the Canopy by Hilton Chengdu City Centre debut in China targeted to deliver an experiential, neighbourhood-centric hotel category to fulfil Chinese travellers’ needs.

The CEO, Nelson Leung, said: “During the past three to five years, the company has been able to successfully create the full business cycle – advertising, payment and logistics – as the complete guidelines for it to create a unique business model.

“[It has transitioned] from being only a provider of huge outdoor media to [being] the first market leader in Thailand to uniquely access the in-depth information on consumers through all the platforms we have in hand,” Leung said.

“Then we use it as a tool to monitor the brand to communicate with the target groups successfully. Currently, VGI can implement the information from these platforms to push the brand to be able to communicate with the target groups at the right place at the right time, enabling the selling opportunities for customers through the service from our ‘O2O Solutions’ strategy.”

The executive said in an interview with The Nation that more than 1.6 million people have downloaded the KBZPay app and 1 million have digitally verified their accounts with national registration cards and biometric verification.

“We have had a resounding start to cross the 1-millionth KBZPay customer mark and has teamed up with more than 40,000 agents and merchants across the country,” he said.

Verified customers can access the full range of KBZPay services, including payment transactions, money transfers and mobile airtime top-up on all major telecom operators, he said.

“Many of our customers are using KBZPay for mobile top-ups, money transfers, and Quickpay for bill transactions. We see Myanmar moving away from a predominantly cash-based society with an increase in cashless transactions in everyday purchases and payments for services,” he said.

“There is strong potential for adoption of mobile-based financial services among the public, including KBZPay. We believe the growing usage of KBZPay will encourage more people to experience it. Looking forward, we have some exciting plans to promote the usage of our service on a regular basis.

According to the executive, KBZPay has partnered with Huawei Technologies Co to encourage people across the country to seamlessly use the wallet.

As a product of KBZ, Myanmar’s largest private bank, the application was introduced in May 2018 and has been growing since.

“KBZPay allows customers to access the most essential financial services at all time, it offers a safer, simpler and more convenient way for transaction and this has set us apart from our competitors,” he said.

“We will introduce new features to meet the requirements of our growing base of customers, merchants and agents, towards our goal of becoming a provider of 100 per cent financial inclusion.”

More than 18,000 employees of KBZ Bank have been visiting communities and public areas in all states and regions nationwide to raise people’s awareness of the mobile wallet. They also encourage stores, cafes, restaurants and service providers across the country to offer KBZPay.

“We will continue to engage and sign up more merchants to bring financial services beyond the branch doors.

We expect to see organic growth of both customer and merchant networks,” said Soe Ko Ko.

KBZPay works with authorised agents to facilitate money transfers and cash withdrawals, and to enable its customers to make cashless transactions. As a result, more people in Myanmar now have access to financial services and the formal economy, said the executive.

“Anyone with a smartphone using a local SIM can register for KBZPay free-of-charge, regardless whether the person has a bank account. It is easy to use and user-friendly,” he said.