Giant companies are swiftly pursuing licenses for virtual banks, forging alliances to vie for leadership in the virtual banking sector and enhance financial inclusion in Thailand.

SCBX and WeBank have agreed to collaborate on exploring deployment of innovative technology in Thailand on 22 March 2024, supporting the Consortium’s pursuit of the virtual bank license. Fostering synergies through innovation technology, the Consortium hopes to tackle the problem of financial inclusion in Thailand by making financial services more transparent, accessible, and affordable.

Following the Bank of Thailand’s first consultation Paper on Virtual Bank Licensing Framework, SCBX joins hands with KakaoBank, South Korea’s largest full-fledged digital bank, in June 2023 to form a consortium in pursuit of the Virtual Bank License, with the aim of providing best-in-class services to the underserved population. Early March 2024, Thailand’s Finance Ministry said the country is opening to take applications for virtual bank permits for the next six months. Virtual Banks will become Thailand’s first branchless commercial banks that provide financial services fully through digital channels. 

Through the sharing of expertise and insights in technology, digital and financial services, and data analytics, the collaboration will aim to support the consortium to not only bring about new value propositions that extend financial services to the underbanked population and cultivate new innovations that better serve the needs of each customer segment.

Mr. Arthid Nanthawithaya, Chief Executive Officer of SCBX said “We foresee robust yet innovative and agile technology playing a crucial role in the success of our Virtual Bank. WeBank is a leading digital bank in the world with one of the most advanced technologies. Our collaboration with WeBank, therefore, should pave the way for a collaborative approach in expanding our virtual bank’s technological breadth and depth, which will enable us to provide a better banking experience to our customers. Our consortium looks forward to boosting banking solutions through innovative product and service offerings to serve the needs of the Thai people.”

Since 2014, WeBank has offered full banking services to retail customers and SMEs, driven by innovative technology. It's the first digital bank to adopt distributed architecture, supporting sustainable inclusive financial services for unbanked and underbanked markets.

The parties will collaborate in the design of tech architecture and technology solutions with the objective of successfully meeting the virtual bank license requirements to operate virtual banking business in Thailand.