Krungthai Bank (KTB) vows to invest further in its digital banking platform to prevent future hiccups associated with the bank's mobile banking services.
KTB president and chief executive Payong Srivanich said the bank has invested 19 billion baht to revamp its IT platform, develop a clear framework and hire up to three tech experts from renowned companies to enhance service quality for mobile banking services.
Krungthai Next, KTB's mobile banking app, covers government, payments, education and healthcare, as well as mass transit systems.
Since there has been rapid growth in mobile banking transactions, particularly at the end of each month, the mobile banking platform has experienced interruptions as a result of heavy transaction volume, Mr Payong said.
Earlier reports said that KTB, the country's fourth-largest lender by assets, was aiming for 3 million mobile banking users by year-end 2018 and 10 million in 2019 after its full-scale mobile banking app launched in October 2018.
The central bank recently announced that it would release downtime statistics of financial institutions in August via its website to enhance banking service quality and provide information for the public to aid consumers' decision-making process.
Ronadol Numnonda, deputy governor overseeing financial institutions stability, said the Bank of Thailand has asked KTB to accelerate efforts to solve technical problems associated with Krungthai Next.
Since technical problems resurfaced recently, Bank of Thailand officials have met with KTB executives to enquire about the root cause of the problems and gauge progress towards resolution.
The central bank reiterated that KTB should have a contingency plan, fix any systemic weakness and communicate with customers experiencing difficulty.
KTB shares closed yesterday on the Stock Exchange of Thailand at 19 baht, unchanged, in trade worth 411.6 million baht.
