KASIKORNBANK's senior VP for retail business joins speakers for the ABF Retail Banking Virtual Conference

Supaneewan Chutrakul is the First Senior Vice President for the Retail Business Division at KASIKORNBANK. She is in charge of supervising KBank’s Retail Innovative Business Solution Department to actively develop a new digital financial platform to serve customers' lifestyle together with the key strategic partners such as Facebook, JD Central, Grab, LINE Finance, Chulalongkorn University, PTT, amongst others.

She joined KBank in 2004 as a senior corporate strategy officer. In 2009, she was assigned to lead the Retail Payment and Foreign Exchange Products Management Department. After this, she was promoted to the role of Department Head of Consumer Segment Management Department.

Supaneewan holds a Master of Applied Economics from University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University.

In an interview with Asian Banking & Finance magazine, Supaneewan talked about the digitization in the retail banking space and in KASIKORNBANK.

How has the internet and digitisation changed retail banking in KASIKORNBANK and in Thailand?

Internet and digitalisation had shaped the customers' expectation on any purchase to be available at customer touch points at any time (I Want What I Want When I Want It). With 52 million internet users in Thailand, Banks cannot just rely on a variety of products or mere differentiation. We have to focus on the ability to be present to provide services at the moment of truth. The accessibility at the touch point of customers' choosing is the key to success of banking.

This also leads to the opportunity to collect data which is another strategic capability. Traditional business models where banks only make decisions on revenue and cost might not be adequate. We also need to take in the value of data collected and the future value we can derive from those data.

How has the pandemic evolved digitisation in Thailand’s retail banking space?

COVID-19 was a digital adoption accelerator for most ecosystems, together with the payment infrastructure of transactions, the rapid growth of digital payment has been witnessed. During the 2nd quarter, KBank had 15% increase in number of customers using e-channel QoQ, 15% increase in mobile transactions, and 145% increase in account opening via mobile application.

The closure of most retail outlets significantly shapes customers' spending behavior, cashless payment has become new favourite methods, we have seen 99% and 67% increase in the number of QR Transfer and QR payments, and 16% increase in online spending using debit cards.

This rapid growth in adoption is an opportunity to expand digital adoption in both buyers and merchants' sides and embed the bank's presence in daily life ecosystems.

The ABF Retail Banking Virtual Conference 2020 will take place on 17 September. To learn more about the event, click here. To register, click here. For inquiries, please contact Hershey Barcelo at hersheyb@charltonmediamail.com or at +65 3158 1386.