Siam Commercial Bank (SCB), the country's third-largest lender by assets, aims to knock Kasikornbank (KBank) off its perch as the top mobile banking provider by next year and reach 10 million users by 2020.
The bank's ambitious new target comes after the launch of new features for its mobile banking app, SCB Easy.
SCB, the country's second-largest mobile banking provider with more than 4 million users, aims for its number of users to increase to 5.5 million by the end of this year and 8 million next year, said chief executive Arthid Nanthawithaya.
KBank has about 6 million mobile banking users and aims to increase the number to 7 million by year-end.
SCB spent 4 billion baht to upgrade its mobile banking into the third version. Banking transactions via SCB Easy amount to about 17 million a month, up from 425,000 in the past two years.
Some 60-70% of SCB Easy users are active, and money transfers dominate SCB's mobile banking transactions, followed by bill payments and money inquiries.
"Despite the falling trend of fee income from transactional banking services, digitalisation will help save operating costs significantly in the longer-term," Mr Arthid said.
Meanwhile, acting chief marketing officer Thana Thienachariya said the bank aims to expand the SCB Easy user base from both the bank's existing and new clients. Currently, the bank's depositors are at around 14 million accounts.
With the 3.0 upgrade, SCB Easy can serve a larger number of financial transactions. The app can process more than 1 million transactions during peak hour.
Apart from traditional the features of mobile banking apps, SCB Easy 3.0 enables cardless ATM function, QR code payment and a more stringent security system under EASY app protection. The bank provides up to 100,000 baht coverage if damages arises from app usage.
Moreover, SCB is collaborating with lifestyle app Wongnai to provide search and pay features for dining and users can also make donations through the app.
According to Bank of Thailand data, mobile banking accounts increased from 13.9 million at the end of 2015 to 20.8 million last year.
SCB shares closed yesterday on the Stock Exchange of Thailand at 142.50 baht, unchanged, in trade worth 329.4 million baht.