Bangkok Bank card reaches for sky
Cardholders of the bank’s Be1st-BTS Visa can get cash from automatic-teller machines, purchase goods and services and ride the Skytrain.
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Bangkok Bank customers can now settle transactions, get cash and pay their fare for a Skytrain ride with one card.
The bank's newest plastic offering is called Be1st-BTS Visa and is a collaboration with the credit-card company and Bangkok Mass Transit System (BTS).Cardholders can get cash from automatic-teller machines, purchase goods and services and ride the elevated train, the bank's credit-card manager Shoke na Ranong said. "Customers can store their travel money in the card then simply tap it against the card reader at Skytrain stations and go." The bank expects about 100,000 card users within a few months. Its Be1st debit cards attract 1.5 million users each year, he said. The card fee is Bt200 a year but it comes with Bt100 preloaded into its "travel purse". Users can top up at Skytrain stations to a maximum of Bt2,000. Soon, this will be possible from the bank's 3,600 automatic teller machines. Shoke predicted better growth for debit cards than credit cards in the current gloomy economic climate because they carried "lower risk for both cardholder and card issuer". Bangkok Bank hopes to have 10 million debit-card customers by the end of the year - an increase of one million. There are 770,000 Bangkok Bank credit cards in circulation, a figure it hopes to see rise to 870,000 by the end of the year. It decides next week if it will cut credit-card interest rates from a current 18 per cent a year. Somruedi Banchongduang The Nation
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