Published on January 18, 2006

Stated-owned Secondary Mortgage Corp (SMC) wants to continue business while preparing to file a lawsuit against its business partners who are allegedly involved in financial fraud.

Naris Chaiyasoot, chairman of SMC and director-general of the Fiscal Policy Office, said the company’s board wanted to continue business after reviewing operations.

SMC is under investigation for financial fraud in which executives, employees, borrowers and business partners could be implicated. Naris said yesterday that the company would let state prosecutors decide whom to charge.

Deputy Finance Minister Chaiyot Sasomsub asked the SMC board to decide whether to continue conducting business after the financial trouble was exposed.

Naris said SMC could play a greater role in assisting low- and middle-income groups to own their own homes in an economic environment of rising interest rates. However, SMC has not been very successful to date, due to high liquidity in the financial market.

The company may cooperate with the Government Housing Bank in a securitisation deal, which would inject long-term funds into the bank, allowing the company to make cheaper and longer-term mortgage loans.

In a related development, Naris said Small Industry Credit Guarantee Corp also planned to lower its Bt1.5 billion worth of non-performing loans by 10 per cent this year. Its current non-performing loans represent 9.76 per cent of total guaranteed loans.

Wichit Chaitrong

The Nation

Post your comment to this story here