, Thailand

Chart of the Week: Thai banks put up fight against telcos in e-wallet war

Lenders will  snap up half of the market in the next four years.

Thai banks are not letting up without a fight against telcos and independent players in the country's heating e-wallet war as they are poised to grow their market share from a little over 6.25% in 2016 to dominate half of the market by 2022, according to Morgan Stanley. 

Also read: Thailand's digital banking shift to boost revenue

Their bid is supported especially since the country's regulatory regime favors incumbent lenders over new players into the scene which also holds true for Malaysia and Singapore but unlike the Philippines where telcos are putting traditional lenders out of the running. 

Morgan Stanley estimates the e-wallet opportunity in Thailand at $42m to $64m which could grow to $248m to $363m by 2024 as rising rates of smartphone penetration will boost adoption of e-payment technologies.

"We assume there are 2.7m telco e-wallet users today, which represents ~4% of total smartphone subscribers in Thailand. By 2022 this grows to 10.9m or ~16% of total smartphone users," the firm added. 

There are also around 26 e-wallet transactions per annum which is poised to grow to 105 by 2023. However, the price per transaction is forecasted to fall from $0.31 (BT10) in 2017 to $0.015 (BT0.5) by 2022.

Proactive tech investments by the country's top lenders, especially Kasikornbank, means that cost income ratios will remain stable as banks start reaping the rewards of effiiency gains. In fact, Kasikornbank reported that the number of its users on its mobile banking channels hit 7.3 million users by the end of 2017, which represents a tenfold increase from 2014.

Join Asian Banking & Finance community
Since you're here...

...there are many ways you can work with us to advertise your company and connect to your customers. Our team can help you dight and create an advertising campaign, in print and digital, on this website and in print magazine.

We can also organize a real life or digital event for you and find thought leader speakers as well as industry leaders, who could be your potential partners, to join the event. We also run some awards programmes which give you an opportunity to be recognized for your achievements during the year and you can join this as a participant or a sponsor.

Let us help you drive your business forward with a good partnership!

Exclusives

Lorem Ipsum Content on ABF
The text to display in the title bar of a visitor's web browser when they view this page. 
Lorem Ipsum
Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text.