Tesco, GE money tie up to offer loans

Named Tesco Personal Loan, the new financial service will initially serve shoppers at Tesco Lotus stores.

More than one million customers visit Tesco Lotus stores each day. The company has 105 hypermarkets throughout the country.

Patrick Graham, CEO of Tesco Lotus, said that personal-loan services in Thailand had great business potential.

"There are about 10 million people in Thailand who have applied for the personal-loan services issued by local and international commercial banks and financial institutions.

The local demand for personal loans has increased significantly,

by 7 per cent per annum," said Graham.

"We want Tesco Card Services to be a one-stop shop for our individual customers who want to apply for any financial service," he said.

Teeravuth Suthanaseriporn, first senior vice president for marketing and sales, Tesco Card Services, said: "We have more than 600,000 customers who have already applied for our financial services, both credit cards and insurance," said Teeravuth.

He said the company initially expected between 2,000 and 4,000 customers monthly to apply for its personal-loan services, which had been designed for customers who demanded convenience and speed. The approval process takes 30 minutes. Interest rates would be set at 27.5 per cent per year. Customers could withdraw cash from Bank of Ayudhya ATMs nationwide, 24 hours a day.