The National Credit Bureau (NCB) expects to increase its membership from 78 to 85 next year now that more lenders are using risk management to maintain loan quality.
Mr Surapol says tough risk management is the key to good loan quality. PORNPROM SATRABHAYA
Potential members are the state-owned Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC), provincial leasing companies, cooperatives, gold futures brokerages, foreign financial institutions offering consumer finance in the Thai market and the state-owned Student Loan Fund, NCB chief executive Surapol Opasatien said in an interview with the Bangkok Post.
The BAAC is expected to become an NCB member next year, meaning initially it will be required to share the credit track record of its corporate customers, while its individual borrowers will be included in the NCB's database later.
The bank has 15 million accounts from 9 million customers.
Once the BAAC becomes an NCB member, the number of credit record accounts in the NCB database will increase significantly from 74.7 million accounts now.
Pornprasert Motor, a motorcycle leasing company in Mukdahan province, also plans to join.
With a large motorcycle loan portfolio covering customers in several northeastern provinces and a new generation of company executives, it needs tough risk management to control loan quality.
"Amid growing urbanisation and more provincial business activities, it's a positive sign that local lenders are paying more attention to risk management and credit record enquiries of customers. Such practices should help them to control bad loans," said Mr Surapol.
YLG Group is currently the only NCB member that is a gold futures trader, but a few companies are preparing to apply for membership due to the business' higher risk amid volatile gold prices.
The Student Loan Fund wants to improve its risk management using credit record checks and educating the younger generation on the importance of keeping a good credit record to access credit in the future.
In addition, Mr Surapol said the NCB plans to offer a credit record alert service next year to remind consumers of their financial status.
It will send subscribers a monthly credit record via SMS for 120 baht a year or 10 baht a month.
The current fee for credit record enquiries for individual customers is 100 baht per transaction, while it is 150 baht for corporate customers.
Mr Surapol said the NCB needs to discuss the new service with banks, as typically they report credit records to customers yearly free of charge.
But banks' credit record checks cost them 600 million baht a year, so the new SMS service would help them to reduce that burden.