Social distancing to contain coronavirus spread and the government's cash handouts to help Thais are giving a boost to online banking, with more than 10,000 new customers opening accounts through Siam Commercial Bank's mobile banking app SCB Easy in three days.
The number of new bank customers who opened accounts through SCB Easy and verified their authentication at 7-Eleven's Counter Service exceeded 10,000 in the final three days of March, indicating people's higher awareness of the digital banking platform, said SCB co-president Apiphan Charoenanusorn.
The coronavirus outbreak has changed consumer behaviour, making people avoid using banknotes and stay at home, encouraging a shift to the digital channel for financial transactions, Mrs Apiphan said.
"Since the virus started to spread in the middle of March, digital financial transaction volume for donations has risen, with 50,000 transactions on the peak day or 10 times higher than normal," she said. "Still, the government's relief measures launched late last month have bumped up the number of the bank's accounts linked with PromptPay by 20,000 in recent days."
With strong demand for online banking, the number of SCB Easy users surged by 200,000 from the end of last year to 11 million at the end of March. Daily digital financial transactions averaged 135 million transactions a month over the past six months.
Some 75% of average daily financial transactions through the digital channel in March were money transfers, totalling 528 billion baht.
SCB, the country's second-largest mobile banking service provider after Kasikornbank, has doubled its financial transaction capacity through SCB Easy to serve rising demand, Mrs Apiphan said.
Bank of Thailand governor Veerathai Santiprabhob said earlier that cash payment growth in Thailand was expected to shrink in the coming years as digital payment transactions soar.
At the end of 2019, PromptPay registrations totalled 49.7 million. Daily transactions averaged 9.6 million with average transfer amounts of 5,000 baht each, reaching a peak of 13 million transactions.
E-payment transactions per user have more than doubled from 63 in 2019 to 135 transactions this year.
In March, PromptPay transactions jumped to 11 million per day, up from 5.7 million year-on-year, the central bank reported.
