The bank yesterday launched a new promotional package for a savings deposit product called "100 days 100 prizes". Customers who open a deposit account with a minimum of Bt10,000 can join a lucky draw to win gold prizes. The campaign runs from today to January 1, 2007.

Since early this year Tbank has offered a savings deposit rate of 3 per cent per year, much higher than the average 0.75 per cent rate of the country's large banks.

But the bank does not need more deposits due to its large liquidity of around Bt60 billion, he said.

"We want to expand the saving deposit proportion to 20 per cent of our total portfolio from around 14 per cent now, while our fixed-deposit base is 86 per cent. With a large portion of time deposits, the bank has a high burden of interest expense," Bandit said.

 The bank's expects the campaign will attract Bt10 billion in new deposits on top of the Bt30 billion it currently has. The bank's aggregate deposit portfolio is around Bt220 billion.

In addition, Bundit said the bank might raise interest rates on its automobile loans by 100 basis points towards the end of this year or early next year. That, however, will mainly depend on what the competition does.

The bank made Bt66.39 billion worth of new auto loans in the first nine months of the year, a 43 per-cent year-on-year increase.

The bank had set a loan growth target of only 6 per cent, Bundit said. Separately, BankThai yesterday launched a "value-added deposit" package, a tax-free deposit account with free personal accident insurance.

Depositors are required to deposit the same amount every month up to a maximum of Bt25,000. They can choose from maturities of 24, 36, 48 or 60 months. But the total on deposit must not exceed Bt600,000. Interest will be paid at the same rate as the bank's 12-month fixed deposit.

Somruedi Banchongduang

The Nation