How do you see the company in 3 years from now? (Mr. Winyou Chaiyawan)

The Thai Credit Retail Bank Public Company Limited (TCRB) focuses on small business and micro segments in Thailand, has just shown its outstanding performance with an over 100% profit growth three years in a run during 2013-2016. However, Mr. Winyou Chaiyawan, Chief Executive Officer, said this achievement is just the beginning.

It was over 10 years ago when the Thai Credit Retail Bank Public Company Limited (TCRB) was founded with the intention to give small businesses an alternative choice to easily access loan products and services. Since then it has grown in a rapid, strong and secure manner. At the end of 2015, the bank turned a new leaf in its history with the launch of micro business segment and was recognised by the government as the largest in micro segment and the only commercial bank who offers such service.

Micro Bank: Success of the Future

One of the bank’s vision is to help its customers improve their life standard.

After achieving a strong growth in loans for small businesses and a successful launch of the new micro segment, the bank is ready to enter a new phase of changes and expansion.

Seeing the gap and opportunity in the market as Thailand is a traditional SME market, there is still a big demand as there are insufficient financial institutions who provide this product. Many of the customers are good businessmen but lack of financial discipline regarding planning and reporting, therefore many of them cannot get a formal business loan from formal financial institution such as banks. This is a weakness in the Thai Market.

Our bank is providing access to SME segment, and we have developed expertise in understanding their business. We provide business loan, the purpose is for productive reasons not consumptive, and that is one of the key success of our business loan.

Sales Channels with Innovation

Marketing strategies are created for different channels. Consumers use multiple devices in their brand journeys especially the usage of mobile as main. We build brand strategies for channels like search, social, content which is delivered across devices like mobile, desktop, or tablets. We are now trying to focus on content & stories which are custom created based on our customer segments and type of products they wish to have.

Social is a delicate space. As a financial institution, there are rules of what can be done or cannot. We are also governed by the Bank of Thailand. We have through frameworks & audits which help us identify our role in the complex social sphere which are being used as guides for marketing ambitions. The world is getting smaller because of all these social media activities that can be seen as a window of opportunity for us in connecting to the new prospect as well as our existing customers. For banking industry, the upcoming trend is on Digital initiative and cashless transactions.

We put high priority in the development of digital and new technology to increase the opportunity for business growth, Fintech will be an important tool to help us reach new target groups of customers who want an easy access to financial products any time anywhere.

We have set up robust processes around identifying consumer segments to understand their real behaviours rather than nationwide or one fit all strategy. We also put strategic rigour in building multiple communication methods using bespoke messaging for micro segments or our wealthy segments. We also measure results to see what type of marketing methods can access each target segment responsively to earn consumer journey. This helps us optimise & adapt in real time so maximum ROI is drawn for the business while providing consumers a seamless experience.

Our system are almost fully customised besides the core banking. Business model is different, we build our own acquisition and operations system, attached to our core banking system. We digitise (almost all) of our monitoring capability so that we can see our loan process in every step and directly with our portfolio quality in real time even to see the appointment between the customer and Relationship Manager, customer’s location by branch, RM or zoning, number of customers or quality of customers.

We also prepare our downloadable APP which focuses on loan and E-Applications process between the customers and Relationship Managers.

Our success depends on the relationship with the customers. Our Relationship Managers work directly with the customer on a one to one relationship. We have an independent team to measure the Net Promoter Score and Customer Satisfaction rating as well as having a quality control who talks directly to the customer after completion of loan process, not just by random, but to all to ensure the best service is delivered.

We will continue to move forward with the strategy to build the unique business model to enter the micro segment along with the low cost branch expansion.  

Power of People

Challenges are around the ever changing landscape in the consumer’s world. Most traditional banks are not structured to adapt & react to rapid change in consumer behaviours, technology evolution & deluge of data. Structuring systems & processes to embrace a real time attitude to market needs requires structural & strategic change, we are working to embrace the new “customer’s centricity” as our new marketing world. So challenges are a constant in our business but so is overcoming them as we go along.

I am so proud to say that it was our people inside that worked hard to achieve our success and even exceed the expectation in previous years. Believing that building strength and sustainability begins from within, we always encourage our employees to put passion into their works. In TCRB’s culture, employees are the key drivers and directly communicate our brand image to customers, so we specifically trained sales staff to enhance their knowledge and skill in selling loan – the core business of the Bank – as well as refining their service to give maximum satisfaction to customers, while other employees are also trained to be able to provide the best service to our customers and coordinate with their colleagues with professionalism.

Always have an open mind and belief in the power of micro segments, we learn something new every day which help us successful. Moment you start believing you are an expert, it’s a doomsday for your career in micro business.