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Bangkok Post – Banks urged to ramp up lending to Thais

PUBLISHED : 17 Mar 2025 at 06:12

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Pichai Chunhavajira

Pichai Chunhavajira

With household and non-performing debts unlikely to increase further, Finance Minister Pichai Chunhavajira says now is the ideal time to encourage financial institutions to accelerate loan extensions.

Speaking at the launch of Government Savings Bank’s (GSB) “Credit-Building, Opportunity-Creating Loan” programme on Friday, Mr Pichai said the current household debt of Thailand, which is at nearly 90% of GDP, is considered to be at its peak, while the level of household non-performing loans has begun to stabilise quarter-on-quarter.

He said the Thai economy is slowly recovering, citing rising demand for used pickups, leading to higher prices compared with 7-8 months ago.

“As the Thai economy begins to rebound, this is the right time to extend loans,” said Mr Pichai.

He said he is attending a Thai Bankers’ Association meeting tomorrow, where he intends to encourage commercial banks to accelerate loan approvals and reduce financial costs for businesses in need of credit.

Regarding stimulus measures for the real estate sector, Mr Pichai said the Bank of Thailand is considering the Finance Ministry’s proposed easing of loan-to-value conditions.

In addition, he said there is a possibility the transfer and mortgage fee reductions to 0.01%, from 2% and 1% respectively, could be extended. This measure expired at the end of the last year.

Regarding the GSB’s “Credit-Building, Opportunity-Creating Loan” programme, Mr Pichai said the target for this year is to provide loans to 300,000 people who have never had credit in the financial system, with a maximum loan amount of 20,000 baht per person.

For the government’s “You Fight, We Help” debt relief programme, which has already received over a million applications, he said the number of new applications is stabilising.

Some remaining funds from this scheme are expected to be available, and the Finance Ministry is considering reallocating them to other initiatives, said Mr Pichai.

GSB president Vitai Ratanakorn said its new loan programme offers an interest rate of 0.60% per month with a loan term of 12 months.

Once borrowers improve their credit, the bank will offer additional loans of 30,000-50,000 baht per person, he said.

The goal is 1 million loan applicants for this programme over three years. Loan applications must be submitted through the bank’s app, said Mr Vitai.



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