Trade Finance to be a focus of KBank

KBank first senior vice-president Songpol Chevapanyaroj said that the bank expected international trade business volume would increase to 3.4 billion baht this year, or 25% of the market. Besides this, KBank forecasted that the country's exports and imports in terms of volume will decrease at just 30 percent this year pursuant to the global recession. The export-import volume of the bank's clients would also fall by 23 while the overall international trade business in the banking sector is expected to drop up to 10 per cent this year in terms of volume.

KBank, which booked trade business volume of 2.5 billion baht last year, it has invested heavily in improving its service platform to improve efficiency and processing time.

Songpol said, “The bank can cut four days from processing time under the new system. The four-day saving means a customer could save interest of around 313,000 baht per annum at 5.5% based on export or import volume of 520 million baht," He continued, “The faster service would reduce the bank's interest income, but it would be offsetted by a larger client base and fee income.”

However, the system development would also help to improve the business potential of the industry while the bank will maintain an ambitious growth target, with several products to offer.

Furthermore, Demand for foreign- exchange hedging by small exporters and importers has increased to 40% of total export-import volume from 15% at the end of last year because of the gains made by the baht compared with the dollar.