Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) plans to ramp up digital bonds as part of its digital banking strategy, aiming to provide more convenience to retail bond investors.
Tanik Tarawisid, first executive vice-president of SCB, said the bank is launching a new bond feature on its mobile banking app, SCB Easy, allowing customers to access bond investments more easily.
The new digital bond feature called Easy-D is a digital bond depository service, scheduled to launch on April 5.
Under the Easy-D feature, SCB expects the proportion of scriptless bond deposits at the bank to increase to 50% of total bonds by 2025 from 14% now.
The bank also plans to add more digital bond features and services on the digital platform in the next phase.
According to Mr Tanik, digital service development will provide customers with more convenient financial services and expand the bank's wealth management business through digital bond investment.
He said the digital bond service development aligns with SCB's strategy of "digital banking with a human touch". Under the bank's three-year business plan from 2023-25, SCB aims to lead the industry's digital wealth service.
SCB, the country's fourth-largest lender by total assets, expects financial product sales on the digital platform to increase to 25% of total sales by 2025 from the low single digits currently.
Digital banking service development aligns with digital banking adoption by the bank's customers and Thais overall, said Mr Tanik.
In 2022, there were 96 million Thai mobile banking accounts, up from 84 million in 2021 and 68 million in 2020. Brick-and-mortar bank branches continued to decline, falling to 5,727 in 2022 from 6,070 in 2021 and 6,513 in 2020.
He said the demand for corporate bond issuance remains positive this year. SCB forecasts total corporate bond issuance of 1 trillion baht this year, despite rising interest rates and higher cost for issuance.
Business operators want to raise new funds for expansion and new project investment both locally and internationally, in line with the Thai and Asian economic recovery, said the bank.
Replacing existing bonds is another reason supporting new corporate issuance this year. Mr Tanik said corporate bonds worth 700 billion baht are due in 2023.
In 2022, corporate bond issuance in the Thai bond market recorded an all-time high of 1.72 trillion baht, up 23% year-on-year.
New corporate bond issuance increased over the past seven years, except for a drop in 2020 attributed to the pandemic.
