The Industry Ministry is collaborating with Kasikornbank (KBank) to offer an e-commerce platform -- K PLUS Market -- for the government's Creative Industry Village (CIV) scheme.
The CIV is a 22-billion-baht state project intended to help villages, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and farmers increase their income under the Pracha Rat (People's State) initiative.
The ministry aims to develop 160 villages in 76 provinces under the CIV.
The project aims to boost the tourism sector and enhance integration between villages and community enterprises.
Deputy Industry Minister Somchai Harnhiran said the K PLUS Market is a new channel for SMEs and community enterprises to connect with customers through computers, tablets and smartphones.
KBank itself has the country's most popular mobile banking app -- KPlus had 8.1 million users with transactions valued at 6.3 trillion baht a year as of March 25 while K-Cyber banking had 1.7 million users with transactions valued at 1.7 trillion baht a year.
K Plus SME had 440,000 users with transactions valued at 200 billion baht a year and K Cyber SME had 43,000 users with 400 billion baht of transactions.
He said the members of CIV project have another payment channel via the QR code technology offered by K PLUS Shop.
"It is a good opportunity for SMEs and community enterprises to access digital platforms easily and the ministry expects further results from this collaboration with the financial institution because of a global upcycle trend in e-commerce," said Mr Somchai.
Kattiya Indaravijaya, KBank's president, added the bank has machine-commerce technology which will help connect buyers and sellers on the K PLUS Market platform.
Currently, most consumers are retail customers and these technologies aim to open up online sales channels.
"KBank expects to reach 10.8 million KPlus mobile banking app users by 2018," said Ms Kattiya. "We are ready to become a medium that utilises machine learning to facilitate online transactions between businesses and consumers via K PLUS Market."
In addition, the Industrial Promotion Department will showcase how K PLUS Market can enable businesses with its network, under the CIV scheme, and also provide business advice at SME Transform between May 18 and May 20 at Impact Muang Thong Thani.