Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) aims to double assets under management (AUMs) and become the top wealth management service provider in the next 3-5 years.
The country's second-largest bank by assets targets AUM at 3 trillion baht in the next 3-5 years, from 1.5 trillion now, SCB executive vice-president Salisa Hanpanich said without revealing the ranking of the bank's wealth management or which financial institution is the largest wealth management operator.
The normal growth pace for AUMs stands at 15-20% per year.
The wealth management market for the affluent with assets of 2 million baht or above have continued to soar substantially.
The market has approximately 700,000 wealth clients with combined AUMs of about 15 trillion baht, representing more than 6% growth.
With more than 200,000 wealth clients, the bank finds that the segment continues to thrive as low risk assets control the bulk of most people's wealth, although they have the capability to seek better returns from investment portfolios that match their risk appetite.
SCB has targeted the wealth management business to capitalise on growing customer demand.
SCB wealth management's customers are classified into SCB Private Banking, those with combined assets of 50 million baht; SCB First, those with combined assets of 10-50 million; and SCB Prime, those with combined assets of 2-10 million.
The bank has 10,000 SCB Private Banking customers with AUM of 750 billion baht, 50,000 SCB FIRST Banking customers with AUM of 400 billion and around 200,000 SCB FIRST Banking customers with AUM of 400 billion.
Ms Salisa said SCB plans to increase the number investment centres to 15 by the year-end from 10, and reach 60 by the end of 2019.
To achieve the target, SCB outlined three strategies -- SCB investment centre, chief investment office and wealth personal banker (a professional financial advisory team) and an advanced digital wealth tech platform.
She said and the bank's investment products are offered through an open architecture platform to enable customers to choose investment products that better serve their needs.
"One of SCB's key targets under the Going Upside Down strategy is to expand the wealth segment," Ms Salisa said. "Under the three SCB Wealth tactics, SCB expects to expand the wealth client base and win customers' hearts and become a leader in Thailand's wealth banking business."
SCB closed yesterday on the SET at 146 baht, up two baht, in trade worth 642 million baht.