Loan extension under the Bank of Thailand's soft loan and recovery loan schemes for businesses affected by the pandemic has reached 300 billion baht since the launch of the programme in April 2020.
For the overall banking sector, loan growth was sluggish in the first quarter as a result of the impact of the Omicron variant.
The central bank kicked off the soft loan scheme with a total budget of 500 billion baht in April 2020 to alleviate the pandemic's impact on business operators, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The bank later adjusted the soft loan scheme to recovery loans to better serve borrowers.
According to central bank data, as of April 18 this year the total loan approvals under its soft loan and recovery loan schemes amounted to 305 billion baht, extended to 128,572 business operators.
For recovery loans, total loan approval was 167 billion baht as of April 18, granted to 50,785 borrowers with an average credit line of 3.29 million baht per borrower.
Of the total, 70.5 billion baht worth of loans were granted to SMEs, 53.2 billion to corporations, 23.4 billion to new customers, and 20.1 billion to micro-SMEs.
Nine of the 10 SET-listed banks announced combined outstanding loans of 14.1 trillion baht in the first quarter of 2022, marginal growth by 0.98% from the end of 2021.
The low growth was attributed to slowing economic activities in the first quarter as the Omicron impact decelerated loan expansion for the first three months of this year.
Kiatnakin Phatra Bank showed the industry's strongest loan growth rate in the first quarter at 6.55% quarter-on-quarter, with loan expansion across all segments, but largely driven by hire-purchase, housing and corporate lending.
The bank also provided assistance to SMEs still affected by the pandemic, while focusing on the long-term recovery of clients.
Bank of Ayudhya recorded 2% loan growth quarter-on-quarter for the period, stemming from demand for corporate and SME loans, which grew 3.9% and 4%, respectively.
Thanyalak Vacharachaisurapol, deputy managing director of Kasikorn Research Center (K-Research), said despite the banking industry's soft quarterly loan growth in the first quarter, K-Research expects loan expansion to gradually improve in the second quarter, in line with recovering economic activities as containment of the Omicron variant improves.
As a result, K-Research maintains its base case assessment of 2022 total loan growth of 4.5%, largely contributed by commercial loans, which have a 5.3% growth rate projection for this year.
Retail loan growth is expected to stand at 4%, with swelling household debt a key factor pressuring the segment, said the research house.
