The Bank of Thailand (BOT) issued a consultation paper outlining a policy framework for repositioning Thailand’s financial sector for a sustainable digital economy, which was open for feedback from stakeholders and the general public from February 1–28, 2022.
The majority of comments agreed with the guiding principle of striking an appropriate balance between promoting innovation and managing risks as the digital economy transitions to sustainable growth.
The three policy directions are as follows: leveraging technology and data to drive innovation through three Opens (Open Competition, Open Infrastructure, and Open Data), managing the transition to a digital economy and sustainability, and shifting from stability to resilience in terms of supervisory framework and protecting the financial system from emerging risks.
Comprehensive risk management is required to address associated risks and unintended consequences, such as assisting financial service users during the transition to a sustainable digital economy, ensuring financial system stability, and assisting businesses and households in adapting to and managing the transition to a sustainable digital economy.
The BOT will incorporate recommendations from relevant stakeholders to improve policy directions and guidelines for repositioning Thailand’s financial sector. The BOT will then issue directional papers and guidelines for public hearings on the following topics: the engagement of banking groups in digital business, the payment system, managing the transition to greater environmental sustainability, and the virtual bank licencing framework by the second quarter of 2022, and directions on open banking policy by the third quarter of 2022.
