Krungsri Consumer, the unsecured loan unit under Bank of Ayudhya (BAY) that uses the marketing name Krungsri, plans to offer a new credit card service for customers to enable them to purchase goods first and pay the loan later.
The new service, called Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL), will be available on Krungsri Consumer's UChoose mobile app.
Krungsri Consumer's new service will allow customers to buy goods first and will then request a loan installment from the customers around one to two months later.
The new service will focus on goods with smaller ticket size and a longer period of loan installments, compared with existing loan installments via credit cards. However, Krungsri Consumer has yet to finalise the conditions of BNPL, said Nayanee Peaugkham, chairwoman of Krungsri Consumer.
Krungsri Consumer has received a digital personal loan business licence from the Bank of Thailand and prepared to launch several new digital loan products on the UChoose app around the middle of this year.
Besides the digital personal loan, it plans to offer digital credit cards as well.
For 2022, Krungsri Consumer aims to acquire a new customer base of 500,000 accounts covering both credit cards and personal loans, rising from more than 300,000 accounts last year.
It expects to grow new loans of 84.6 billion baht, rising 11% from last year, and expand total loans outstanding to 149.6 billion baht, up 7% from the previous year.
In addition, Krungsri Consumer plans to increase credit card spending to 312.3 billion baht this year, a growth rate of 10% from last year.
Ms Nayanee said spending via the company's credit cards has risen aggressively by 12.3% for the first two months this year, compared with the same period of the year before, particularly spending in domestic tourism and air ticket categories due mainly to pent-up demand amid the Covid-19 outbreak and economic recovery.
However, the company will continue closely monitoring the economic situation and higher uncertainties of external factors, especially the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war. As a result, it will continue to control asset quality in this year and offer long-term debt refinancing for vulnerable customers.
Krungsri Consumer's non-performing loan (NPL) ratio for credit cards stood at 1.1% in the fourth quarter of 2021, declining from 1.4% in the first quarter of 2020, the beginning of the pandemic. Meanwhile, the NPL rate of personal loans also fell to 2.8% in the final quarter last year from 3% in the first quarter of 2020.
In 2021, Krungsri Consumer booked new loans of 76.5 billion baht and total loan portfolio at 139.9 billion baht. Total spending via its credit card was 285 billion baht, Ms Nayanee said.