Published: October 29, 2012
Bangkok Bank’s unparalleled domestic presence and overseas network covering 13 countries has resulted in a large number of corporates, both Thai and foreign enterprises, selecting Bangkok Bank as their banking partner of choice. In some cases, particularly Asian domestic and regional companies, these companies may work solely with Bangkok Bank. In other cases, particularly foreign multinationals and Thai companies with a wide international reach, they may work with a variety of different banking partners. Corporates of all sizes and degrees of complexity are typically attracted to our proprietary electronic banking solutions; however, it can be complex to maintain separate electronic banking systems for each bank. Consequently, multi-banked corporates in particular are increasingly taking advantage of SWIFTNet connectivity, enabling them to connect to multiple banks through a single channel.
To support the needs of both our domestic and multinational clients, Bangkok Bank is an innovator in providing highly functional electronic banking capabilities. In addition, we offer a variety of integration options depending on clients’ internal systems infrastructure and the degree of automation that is required for exchanging information. But for more than five years, we have also enabled many of our clients who are Thai subsidiaries of multinational companies to access our services via SWIFTNet. SWIFTNet offers bank-neutral, multi-bank communication for a wide variety of financial messages, including payments (high value and bulk payments) and balance and transaction reporting.
Although SWIFTNet is becoming a popular connectivity channel for multi-banked corporates in particular, and those with high transaction volumes, Thai corporates do not as yet carry out their outward transactions with overseas banks via SWIFTNet. Corporates from overseas do however send inward payment instructions via SWIFT MT 101 to debit their accounts with us and pay their vendors in Thailand. These include global companies that have multiple bank relationships to support their international activities, often in many countries, and who are seeking to connect with their banks efficiently and reliably through a single channel, with a single interface with internal systems, as opposed to maintaining multiple electronic banking systems with different interface requirements.
SWIFT also offers a value proposition to large domestic businesses with high volumes of payments and collections, such as public sector companies, utilities and telecoms. Although these companies may have only a few banking relationships, SWIFT can prove attractive as a result of its strength in security, network resilience and volume handling capabilities.[[[PAGE]]]
Although SWIFT service bureaus are available in some countries, providing outsourced connectivity services to corporations, this is not yet the case in Thailand. Currently, although a range of message types are available through SWIFT, Thai corporates do not use SWIFTNet to send MT 101 overseas, as they do not centralise their financial transactions. If they have a subsidiary in another country, that subsidiary will carry out its accounting and financial transactions with a local bank.
Establishing bank connectivity and integration can be a hurdle to international growth due to the resources required and complexity, particularly as formats differ across countries. Leveraging SWIFTNet can be a vital means by which companies connect quickly and efficiently with their banks without fragmentation or replication of infrastructure. In the future, as Thai corporations continue to expand their international presence, we expect to see a growing proportion of these centralising their cash and treasury management activities, together with their bank connectivity, into a single global or regional treasury centre. SWIFT offers considerable value to these organisations, and we will continue to be proactive in helping to optimise these companies’ centralisation and bank communication initiatives.
Increasingly we are finding that companies headquartered or operating in Thailand are attracted to Bangkok Bank’s unrivalled customer base in Thailand, extensive regional and overseas branch network and enduring customer relationships. As we continue to strengthen our presence both in Thailand and overseas, such as opening new branches in China, Malaysia and Indonesia, we expect to see even greater interest in our corporate banking services from Thai and foreign companies alike.
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