Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) is partnering with Line Thailand to offer a social banking platform, aiming to boost customer engagement and use facial recognition technology to distinguish walk-in customers at physical branches by the end of this month.
Commercial banks need to shift to the digital channel to achieve closer customer engagement, keeping loyal users and pulling in additional revenue, said Thana Thienachariya, SCB senior executive vice-president and chief of marketing.
Banks will need to reach out to digital customers who rarely deal with traditional branches, he said. The digital channel allows banks to provide faster service at a lower cost with greater convenience.
"The average transaction cost on the digital channel is about one baht compared with 60 baht at a branch and 20 baht via ATM," Mr Thana said.
SCB is the first bank to use the Line Business Connect solution, which enables corporate users to add features to their official accounts via application programming interface (API) by sending free notifications of every transaction such as deposits, withdrawals and credit card spending.
By offering the SCB Connect service, the bank will lose a hundred million baht in revenue from SMS notifications each year but should be able to build customer loyalty, Mr Thana said. Such customers are projected to use SCB as their main bank account, he said.
The main operating accounts provide liquid assets as a source of funding for banks, and SCB can make use of those customers' data, providing them various loan services.
Mr Thana said that after introducing SCB Connect, the bank has gained an additional 2.2 million users and aims to reach 7-10 million this year.
SCB Connect helps offload call centre staff and is different than QR code service in that it notifies merchants of their money movements.
"SCB Connect will help the bank pave the way for deeper engagement with customers, making content 10% less blocked than on other official accounts, which are blocked 30-60%," Mr Thana said.
SCB aims to bring 90% of routine services to the digital channel via a self-service model, transforming existing branches to provide more strategic services to higher-income customers, rather than running bill payments or lower -value service transactions.
This can free up bank staff and increase productivity. At the branches, SCB will also embrace facial recognition to identify walk-in customers.
Some 200 out of 1,100 SCB branches will be closed down by year-end under the bank's digital transformation plan, which entails a 100-billion-baht investment in technology each year.
Norasit Sitivechvichit, commercial director of Line Thailand, said brands can adopt Business Connect to leverage their official accounts.
Business Connect grew by five times last year, with those operating in retail, fast-moving consumer goods, banking and finance among the top users.
Mr Norasit said 15% of its 300 official accounts are now using Business Connect, with that ratio expected to increase to 50% this year.
