Thailand’s Bangkok Bank has collected one of the toughest categories in the RBI annual global awards: best mobile banking strategy. The bank’s Bualuang mBanking mobile banking application has successfully reduced customers reliance on cash and boosted macro-economic benefits for Thailand, writes Douglas Blakey

Strong collaboration between Bangkok Bank and technology partner Fiserv enabled the Thai bank to deliver its Bualuang mBanking mobile banking offering within a very tight six month timeframe. Bangkok Bank is the first Thai bank to provide a service of its type and it has proved an instant winner.

Fiserv completed a person-to-person (P2P) payment project for Bangkok Bank allowing customers to check account balances, manage payments and transfer money between accounts.

The aim of the new P2P payment functionality was to expand the customer base to both bank and non-bank customers, so funds could be transferred to anyone. Before the project’s implementation many customers said they found account numbers too long and difficult to remember.

In addition to P2P, the project also enhanced the customer experience to make it easier and more convenient to pay bills via mobile payments by providing logos of the billing companies and allowing customers to search by category or the billing company’s name.

This project also stimulated transaction usage, boosting bank fees revenue and acted as a foundation for Thailand National ePayment – initiatives of interbank P2P that will use citizen ID and mobile phone numbers as a reference instead of a bank account number.

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Headline successes included:

  • A significant increase in customer satisfaction scores;
  • A change in customer behaviour with 37% growth in mobile banking usage in 2016;
  • A reduction in the cost of serving the customer

As of October 2016, the bank experienced:

  • 40% growth in transactions since 2015
  • 60% rise in the number of registered users
  • 20% rise in average financial transaction usage/user/month
  • 350% rise in average payment transaction volume/month

Bangkok Bank’s mobile banking customers soared to 2.6 million from 1.6 million between October 2015 and 2016 while m-banking downloads increased to 3.7 million from 2.2 million over the same period.

Between August 2015 and October 2016, the average payment transaction volume per month increased by 307% and revenue increased by 170% from December 2015.

Delivering feature-rich mobile banking and payment services that are easy for consumers to access and use was a strategic priority for Bangkok Bank.

One key local differentiator for Bangkok Bank was its P2P service with a Claim Site to allow non-bank customers to be able to collect funds sent to them – rival banks offer only walled gardens for the customers of that particular bank.

To further improve customer convenience and security, in 2016 Bangkok Bank introduced a new service, mAlert – underpinned by Fiserv’s Mobiliti Edge -notifications that will keep customers up to date with account movements and remind them of credit card due payments with the innovative feature “actionable alerts”, another first in Thailand.

Further efforts to accelerate cash displacement included Bangkok Bank taking a leading role in establishing the Thai Payment Network (TPN). TPN aims to provide a Thailand payment network that meets international standards in line with the National e-Payment Master Plan and is Thailand’s first card network under the local card scheme.

Bangkok Bank issued Thailand’s first TPN-UnionPay card, followed by two other lifestyle cards later in the year. By the end of 2016, more than one million of these cards had been issued.

In 2016, the 1,200 branch strong Bangkok Bank posted a net profit of THB31.8bn; loans grew by 3.9% with deposits growing by 4.2% year-on-year.

Less positive full fiscal 2016 metrics included a rise in its cost-income ratio to 47.7% from 43.9% but in the first quarter of 2017 the figure fell sharply to 40.7% against a target of a figure in the mid-40s.