Thailand Future Fund secures adviser

Vorapak Tanyawong, president of KTB, said yesterday that the financial adviser would propose the options for fund mobilisation to the government, with KTB having the nationwide network to distribute fund units to retail customers.

The capital from selling fund units will be used to finance infrastructure projects, starting with the high-speed-rail project from Bangkok to Nakhon Ratchasima province.

Separately, KTB yesterday unveiled the KTB PromptPay campaign, which offers prizes worth a total of Bt9 million.

The campaign will run from July 15 to October 15.

Songpol Chevapanyaroj, senior executive vice president and head of the bank’s global transaction banking group, said the campaign was part of a strategy to get existing customers to use KTB as their main bank.

Under the scheme, the bank said fund transfers would be more convenient because there would be no fee if the amount was less than Bt5,000, while the cost of cash management was reduced as well.

Vorapak said the benefit of being the main bank for customers was the cross-selling of products.

The bank said it had received more than 300,000 PromptPay pre-registrations since it began accepting them on July 1.

Official registrations for the scheme, which is designed to enhance e-payments, will be accepted from July 15.

KTB said it had about 17 million depositors, and it hopes to bring in 8 million more under the campaign.

Vorapak said the bank’s upcountry customers were more aware of using automated teller machines and digital banking, with transactions at branches declining, including those for retail vendors’ lottery reserves.

He said retail vendors were migrating to booking lottery tickets via ATMs and KTB’s online channels because they could access reserves from those channels more quickly than they could through the branches.