Tisco Bank expects to book significant full-year loan growth of 27-30% thanks mainly to auto financing jumping more than expected with the government's first-time car buyer scheme.
Oranuch Apisaksirikul, president of the Tisco Financial Group, the holding company of Tisco Bank, said the bank increased its estimate for total second-half loan growth to 20% from 10-15% earlier this year.
For the first nine months of the year, total loans rose by 23.3%.
With the government's first-time car buyer scheme and strong car demand after the floods, Tisco expects auto loan growth will exceed 20% this year.
Usually, individual debt grows by 10-12% per year.
Tisco also predicts car sales will mushroom to 1.4 million vehicles this years from 800,000 to 900,000 in most years.
Even though first-time car buyers generally have lower income than Tisco's average existing portfolio, the bank insists it will keep its risk management strategies.
Eco-car loans are kept as a small portion of total auto debt outstanding at 150 billion baht.
Its core business _ auto finance _ represents 93% of total retail loans, with year-on-year growth over the first nine months of 20.4%.
Retail banking, Tisco's largest loan portfolio, totalled 70.5% of total outstanding loans, with commercial loans accounting for 18%, small and medium-sized enterprise loans 9.5% and other loans 2% as of Sept 30.
"Our market share of new car loans has dipped slightly. This reflects the bank's strong risk management, but we remain the market leader for consumer finance," said Mrs Oranuch.
Tisco feels it has controlled bad debt on new loans at a satisfactory level by making capability to repay debt the key criteria for loan approval.
Mrs Oranuch said car sales are expected to normalise next year at 1.1 to 1.2 million vehicles.
Auto hire-purchase loans will also drop with this projection, assuming the government's first-time car buyer scheme is not extended.