BAAC ready to be bank for "the poor"
The Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives is ready to provide the micro-finance services to the poor who have no access to conventional loan windows, on condition that the credits must be booked in a separate account.
Ennoo Suesuwan, executive vice president, admitted that the services contain high risks, and thus it requires the separation of the accounting book, personnel and evaluation.
He noted that BAAC does not plan to compete with commercial banks or other state-owned banks in providing such credits, as it would focus on people in provinces.
"BAAC has extended non-agricultural loans to the general public. By law, that could reach 20 per cent of lending portfolio, which is now about Bt500 billion. But so far, we have loaned only about Bt30-Bt40 billion, due to the low number of loan applicants and BAAC's emphasis on farmers," he said.
The micro-credit programme aims to offer loans, money transfer and insurance services to the low-income earners, small business operators and farmers.
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