Standard Chartered Nakornthon Bank is moving aggressively to capture the small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) lending market in Thailand, targeting a 10% share within five years, up fivefold from current levels.
Thailand's small business finance segment has rich potential as it is growing more quickly than any other SME market in the Asian region, bank executives say.
The UK-based bank's global rebranding strategy focuses heavily on extending loans and other types of services to SMEs, with an eye to becoming the world's leading international SME bank, according to John Filmeridis, global product head for SMEs at Standard Chartered.
Mr Filmeridis said the bank's current share of the SME lending market in Thailand was 2%, up from only 0.5% in 2003. It expects the share to grow to 5% in two years and 10% in five years.
