Mr. Wirawat Panthawangkun, KBank Senior Executive Vice President, noted that given the COVID-19 situation, customers have avoided using cash and going outside, and have shifted to conduct financial transactions online via K PLUS instead. KBank is thus prepared to accommodate the rising demand of customers using the K PLUS application. As evidenced, the number of financial transactions via K PLUS surged to 700 million during the first quarter of this year, up 8 percent compared to the final quarter of 2019. In addition, the growth of K PLUS transactions can be attributed to the government handout scheme “Rao Mai Ting Kan”, which resulted in new applications for K PLUS nearing 10,000 per day, 80 percent of which involve first-time online account opening via K PLUS. KBank has set targets that K PLUS users and transactions via K PLUS will reach 15 million and 11,600 million by the end of 2020, growing 24 and 37 percent, respectively, compared to last year.
Increased use of K PLUS features during the COVID-19 outbreak has been noted in the following trends:
Funds transfers, including those to KBank accounts, interbank funds transfers and funds transfers via PromptPay.E-Wallet top-up, such as for TrueMoney and GrabPay.Insurance purchase, namely insurance premium payments to Muang Thai Insurance, Muang Thai Life Assurance, Krungthai- AXA Life and Allianz Ayudhya Assurance.K+ Market, which is an online market that offers quality products and discount coupons. Customers have the option to pay for products and services by cash from their accounts linked with K PLUS or by KBank Reward Points instead of cash. A promotional campaign is held every month to offer frequent shoppers codes to get discounts from JD CENTRAL on their payday. KBank is targeting an increase in the offerings of quality merchandise via K+ Market to more than 70,000 products by the end of 2020.
Mr. Wirawat added that KBank focuses on multi-channels in order to provide greater convenience to its customers anywhere they wish in using financial services. These include the KBank Service channel which provides deposit/withdrawal service, payment acceptance service, and K CHECK ID checkpoints to support the opening of a K-eSavings account. Expansion plans for KBank Service are being realized through 19 banking agents – major alliances with networks of branches spanning the entire country – with a target of 100,000 locations by the end of 2020. These alliances include 7-Eleven, Big C Supercenter and Mini Big C, Thailand Post, FamilyMart, CJ Supermarket, JMart, Kerry Express, Maxvalu, Cafe Amazon, Jiffy, Inthanin Coffee, SPAR, TD, Bridgestone, Legacy, Tokyu, Srisawad Corp, electronic top-up machines (Boonterm and Term Sabai) and additional K CHECK ID checkpoints, a crucial part of opening a K-eSavings account, in 4,000 locations by the end of April 2020. These checkpoints will function as a way to provide customers greater convenience when opening a new account, without the need to travel to a KBank branch, and allow customers to apply for K PLUS on their own.