In 2010, shortly after he became governor of the Bank of Thailand (BOT), Prasarn Trairatvorakul called in the top executives of Thailand’s banks to discuss their future growth plans. “I told them they should look abroad,” Mr Prasarn recalls. “They told me it is difficult. We are smaller than our friends in Singapore and Malaysia.”
Since then, however, Thailand’s four largest banks – Bangkok Bank, Krung Thai, Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) and Kasikorn Bank – seem to have been following the governor’s advice. The big four, which account for some 58% of Thailand's banking system’s assets, have good reason to expand beyond the country's borders.
