Bangkok--31 Jan--TMB
TMB advances ahead in developing and delivering digital banking services to serve the unmet needs of customers to empower them to live life to the fullest in the digital age. The Bank launched today Thailand's first mobile application for SME customers, "TMB Business Touch" to increase convenience, simplicity and fulfillment of digital banking services for SMEs.
Mr. Roel Huisman, Chief Retail Banking Officer of TMB, said "TMB is customer-centric, with a focus on the right solutions to eliminate customer problems and meet their real needs before sorting out the enabling technology or partners to work with. Moving in the right direction, TMB customers, therefore, overwhelmingly responded to TMB digital banking offerings during the past five years because of the real benefits customers get from using the products and services which meet their needs, efficient, convenient, simple and secure. The customer digital banking journey with TMB has been significantly enhanced since 2012 with the introduction of ME by TMB, the market-first real digital banking service, under the concept of simple DIY banking for customers to get more benefit. A significant proof of positive changes on customer life is that a customer who uses TMB Internet Banking or TMB Touch mobile application can open a ME by TMB account, deposit & transfer fund, request statement or letter of account certificate, digitally without having to visit any physical bank branch."
Mr. Huisman continued that the sharp rise of smartphone user number by 527% in 2014 coupled with the fast-changing lifestyle and needs of customers in the digital era has prompted TMB to introduce TMB Touch mobile application to meet the increasing smartphone user demand for quality digital banking service. TMB Touch has been a success, with an increase number of new users by 165% and regular user number rises 175%. The average usage is 11.55 times per user per month, higher than the frequency of monthly branch visit by a customer. In addition, the number of transactions via TMB Touch has grown by 187% and the total transactional value doubled from 12 billion baht from the start to 24.5 billion baht. Nevertheless, TMB never stop innovating to constantly make TMB Touch better for more benefit of customers. The Bank has added TMB So GoOOD 0% installment payment service was as a unique feature on TMB Touch where customers can apply for installment payment instantly on the application right after goods or service purchase. It has been proven popular as the number of TMB So GoOOD transaction done via TMB Touch jumped by 2088% within one year.
"We are also delighted to see the growing number of customers applying to use TMB products and services via digital channels. The results encourage us to confidently move forward to do more for our customers through our digital banking endeavor. All these serve as a testimonial to TMB's commitment to providing the quality digital banking service which is aimed to, first and foremost, answers to the real needs of customers," said Mr. Huisman.
Mr. Trirong Butragaht, TMB Chief SME Banking Officer, mentioned about TMB's commitment to serving SME client needs that TMB understands the issues this group of customers has to encounter. Thailand has a total number of about 2,765,000 SME proprietors. In 2015, the total SME business value reached 5,559,534 million baht or 41.1% of the national GDP. TMB sees that SME customers should get higher attention and be better taken care of.
Mr. Trirong said that small SME customers usually manage every part of business by themselves. They get stuck in a mess of routine which prevents them from growing their business as dreamed. This is one of the major obstacles for business expansion and quality of life improvement for business owners. Moreover, the owners have to spend so much time on banking. Internet banking has not been the right answer to the problems of this particular group of customers. Mobile banking applications in the market have been mainly designed for retail customers, not SME customers, so they do not come with the features that SME customers require.
"TMB understand the issues well, therefore, we put our efforts in improving the efficiency of banking for SME customers, allowing business owners to have a digital banking service like never before and to empower them to live life to the fullest. We have purposely designed "TMB Business Touch", a new mobile application, and launched it in the market today as the first mobile application for SME in Thailand available on both iOS and Android operating systems. We expect that there will be over 20,000 TMB Business Touch users by the end of 2017, with over 2,000,000 transactions executed by the end of this year. We aim to increase the number of new users by 100,000 by 2021, an annual increase of about 10-15%.
Mr. Piti Tantakasem, TMB Chief Wholesale Banking Officer, added that the launch of TMB Business Touch for SMEs fulfills the needs of TMB digital banking in all customer segments. Previously, TMB has already released TMB Business Click for large corporate customers and TMB Touch mobile application for retail customers. Leveraging on the success of TMB Touch, TMB Business Touch has been developed with an aim to eliminate the routine problems SME customers encounter in their daily business operation. From now on, SME customers can do their transactions anywhere, anytime every day on their smart phone using TMB Business Touch. The Bank has also involved customers in the development process to ensure that TMB Business Touch is the real solution needed to eliminate customers' problems.
"With TMB Business Touch, customers can now instantly check account balance and available OD by themselves on TMB Business Touch. Customers do not have to contact bank to ask and wait for the bank to call back with the required information. There is an in-app 'My Calendar' to record past transactions and remind customers of future transactions to be made. Customers can transfer fund by bulk in one go to pay for staff salary or to others. Stop-check function is available on TMB Business Touch to give customers' more control of their financial management. With all these 'killing' features, we are confident that TMB Business Touch is the Thailand's first mobile banking application which can answers to the real needs of our SME customers to empower them to better manage their business and live life to the fullest in the digital age."