Thailand’s Fintech Growth Is Amongst The Fastest In ASEAN

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It has been seen that Thailand is one of the top countries where the growth of Financial Technology is increasingly huge, at least in the ASEAN Region. The World Bank, meanwhile, has also suggested the Thai government to reduce the several inequalities in access to the capital to enable the variations in Fintech development to emerge even more prominently.

Kiatipong Ariyapruchya, who is the Senior Economist of Thailand in the World Bank has recently revealed that the World Bank’s analysis of financial technology or Fintech, has seen that Thailand is regarded as an ASEAN country which has achieved rapid Fintech development, with almost 140 Fintech companies registered in 2018-2019, while about half of them are brand new companies and enterprises that have come up.

About 43% of all the available Fintech companies in Thailand have placed their focus on the development of various digital transaction services. However, most of these Fintech companies are now under the supervision of various large banks which have also developed their own digital and financial transactions systems or have purchased one from any other company. This in turn actually discourages the independent development by Fintech companies and suppresses the development of their full potential in Thailand. The coming up of so many Fintech companies have provided the people with business opportunities in Thailand like never before.

The Thai government has also created several legal and economic frameworks and established different organizations to support the expansion and diversity of all these digital financial service providers with clear and efficient development guidelines. The Thai public, on the other hand, has a limited capacity to access this capital base household income levels; this is, however, the high volume of digital transaction usage when compared to the rest of the globe.

What can the Government do to promote it?

The Thai government needs to specifically address the unequal access to the capital, which will help the country to develop and establish a modern, inclusive, and also secure an economic system. The government of Thailand must also promote significant competitiveness of Fintech connectivity and much-needed cooperation between the traditional Thai banks and Fintech companies, which will help to create much closer cooperation between the regulating agencies to prevent absolute redundancies, as a result of which might obstruct Thailand Fintech development by significant margins.

What do the numbers say

Thailand is much more advanced in terms of internet use when compared to other countries that hail from the South East Asian sector. With almost 82% of the population on the worldwide web and around 74% of Thai internet users engaging in various online banking each month. Of all the Thai internet users, 47% of them make mobile payments in their country and around 71% purchase different kinds of goods from online vendors using their phones every month. These numbers show how much the Thai people are depending on mobile and online transactions.

Even though the Thai people are active online, they are at the same time highly banked. With around 82% of the entire population owning at least one online account with a financial institution, Thailand falls in the slightly less friendly market for those types of fintech payment platforms which have been attracting millions of people in other global countries in 2019. Hence, it is attracting much less investment for the overall lending platforms in Thailand.

In spite of that, Thailand is still a champion when it comes to Fintech in the ASEAN Region. It has steadily become a leader in the crypto industry and other financial technologies that other countries are lagging behind. It has been seen that at least 10% of all Internet users in Thailand have some form of investments made in cryptocurrency which helps the country to secure a second spot in the global scenario of crypto ownership just behind South Africa. The Thai government also supports the ownership of cryptocurrencies in the local coins and currencies.

Southeast Asia’s fintech market is among the fastest-growing in the world, with estimates placing expected market growth to reach between $70 billion and $100 billion by 2020. Fintech investments in South East Asia shot up by more than 30% over the course of 2018 to reach nearly $6 billion, while some estimates state that the overall Internet economy across the region increased by 44% last year compared to 2017. Thailand is at the top of the ladder and is supposedly going to expand its reach even more.

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