SCB urged to 'declare stand' for KMITL

SCB urged to 'declare stand' for KMITL

Some 100 King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang (KMITL) employees have asked Siam Commercial Bank about its stand in the 1.6-billion-baht scam at their office and how the bank plans to take responsibility for the damage.

Kiattisak Roonprasang (right), vice-dean of KMITL's Engineering Faculty, submits the letter to Pongsit Chaichutpornsuk, SCB's executive vice-president for fraud management, at SCB's head office in Bangkok on Jan 20, 2015. (Photo by Thanarak Khunton)

Kiattisak Roonprasang, vice-dean of KMITL's Engineering Faculty, submitted on Tuesday an open letter to Pongsit Chaichutpornsuk, SCB's executive vice-president for fraud management. The letter was addressed to the bank's president.

"SCB looks after our salary accounts and took care of 1.5 billion baht of the 1.6 billion baht stolen from KMITL. We'd like the bank to show its position and tell us what it plans to do in the future," Mr Kiattisak said.

The letter also asked Bank of Ayudhya and Krungthai Bank of which accounts were involved in the scam to show their positions as well.

The group questioned SCB's security measures and its ability to keep people's deposits safe after cash was gradually withdrawn from KMITL's accounts to the tune of one billion baht without anyone noticing.

"We'd like the bank to show its stand on how it will take responsibility for the damage and rebuild confidence among savers. It should also report the problems to the Bank of Thailand and explain to the public how it happened," Mr Kiattisak said.

After talking with Mr Kiattisak, Mr Pongsit of SCB said his bank would stand by KMITL and cooperate fully with police.

"In this case, we routinely checked back with KMITL's executives to confirm withdrawn amounts and found nothing irregular about the balances," said the banker.

"However, we noticed some strange behaviours in Songklod Sriprasong when he was manager at our Big C Suwinthawong branch. He tended to approve withdrawals before all signatures were given and we asked him to leave without disciplinary action. We did warn the bank that he worked for after us about this, however.

"Approving withdrawals is not proof that we are at fault," he said, drawing the analogy between bank operations and a pipe.

"A bank is like a pipe. When water flows in, we have no way of knowing whether it's good water or bad water. The persons who know best are those controlling the valves — the money owner and receiver. We can't tell whether the money was legitimately acquired."

Asked about the call that the bank should take responsibility, Mr Pongsit said it was too early to say so since the bank would have to abide by the law anyway.

"For our part, we have to find out whether we did anything differently in this case. If we did wrong, we'll face the consequences. But if we didn't, we don't know how we should take responsibility," he said.

Songklod Sriprasong, a key suspect in the case, was manager of SCB's Big C Suwinthawong branch when three fixed deposit accounts were opened in 2012. It later turned out someone withdrew 1.5 billion baht from them.

In the latest development, KMITL reported another 100 million baht was missing from its account at SCB's KMITL branch.

After the case came to light, SCB issued a statement on Dec 23 last year, saying Mr Songklod used to be its employee but resigned in September 2013. The bank also pledged full cooperation with authorities.

Also on Tuesday, SCB issued a statement confirming its commitment to cooperating fully with investigators and tracing the money trail.

Do you like the content of this article?
COMMENT