UOBT prepares car title loan service for next year
United Overseas Bank (Thai) or UOBT plans to formally offer a car title loan service next year as part of its business expansion.
The bank piloted the Car2Cash car title loan service and is planning the official launch early next year to meet customer demand, UOBT head of retail and brand Vira-Anong Chiranakhon Phutrakul said in an exclusive interview with the Bangkok Post.
“We see a greater business opportunity in the car title loan segment, in line with positive demand from customers. Bank clients who own cars require additional liquidity for different business and personal purposes,” Mrs ViraAnong said.
UOBT has no plans to offer auto hire-purchase loans, concentrating on financial products and services that correspond to real demand from customers, she said.
In January of 2022, Singaporebased regional banking group UOB announced an agreement to acquire Citigroup’s consumer banking businesses, comprising unsecured and secured lending portfolios, wealth management and retail deposit businesses, in Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand.
The sale of Citigroup’s Malaysia and Thailand consumer banking businesses to UOB subsidiaries was completed in early November.
In the Thai market, the acquired businesses are being transferred to UOBT and the integration process is expected to be completed in the beginning of 2024.
The integration doubles UOBT’s total individual customer base to around 2 million.
With this inorganic growth, UOBT becomes the sixth-largest retail bank in the nation and third-largest credit card provider.
Despite being in the transitional process, the bank plans to acquire new customers, aiming for total retail clients to exceed 2 million after the integration with Citigroup’s consumer banking businesses.
Mrs Vira-Anong said the bank would continue to strengthen its credit card business via synergy between UOBT and Citibank.
In addition to maintaining existing business partners, the bank has been adding new partnerships both locally and internationally, including Michelin Guide, Shopee, Lazada and Singapore Airlines, to provide better services and privileges to customers.
Apart from the credit card business, the bank also plans to strengthen its wealth management service, retail deposit and mortgage businesses, as well as improve the cross-sales ratio under the integration.
UOBT expects to double the revenue of the retail banking business, in line with the goal of doubling growth of the customer base after the complete integration.
Mrs Vira-Anong said the bank would expand the customer base to cover the younger generation, especially via its digital banking platform, UOB TMRW, which is integrating with the mobile banking app of Citibank.
She said given the strong growth prospects of UOBT’s retail banking business, the bank is not too concerned about asset quality because of the low non-performing loan ratio of both UOBT and Citibank.
“Emerging affluent customers” with a minimum monthly income higher than 15,000 baht are the bank’s key customer segment, said Mrs Vira-Anong.