Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank proposes to convert its mobile digital payment platform as a lifestyle app to help face competition from fintech companies. The bank is working with international technology companies for the purpose and the idea is to create an app that allows customers to search and pay for entertainment options such as restaurants and cinemas, going beyond just day-to-day banking. Thailand’s banks are now creating sophisticated digital strategies to compete with fintech companies that threaten to eat into traditional sources of revenue from payments, deposits and lending. The app platform is being developed amid a wider reassessment of how best to utilize and retrain the bank’s workforce and control costs as technology streamlines operations.
