Thai government plans to address bad debt

The Thai government is planning to address public and small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) debt issues by deferring interest payments for three years on non-performing loans (NPLs) incurred after October 2023.

Deputy Minister of Finance Paopoom Rojanasakul stated that this initiative will assist 2.3 million borrowing accounts in settling a total debt of THB1.31 trillion ($37 billion).

According to Paopoom, to qualify for this programme, applicants must meet specific criteria. Their loans must have been classified as NPLs within the last year by October 31, 2024. Additionally, total debt must not exceed THB3 million ($85,000) for home and SME loans, and $800,000 ($22,000) per vehicle for auto loans.

The Ministry of Finance has set the NPL cutoff date as October 31, 2024, to prevent new accounts from intentionally defaulting to participate in the initiative.

The ministry estimates that this solution will benefit 460,000 home loan accounts totaling THB483 billion ($13.8 billion), 1.4 million auto loan accounts totaling THB375 billion ($10.7 billion), 430,000 SME loan accounts totaling THB454 billion ($12.9 billion).

Paopoom added that the Financial Institution Policy Committee (FIPC) of the Bank of Thailand will soon announce detailed guidelines for borrowers to register for the programme.

He explained that the campaign will not be funded by government budgets but instead by allowing Thai banks to reduce their annual contributions to the Financial Institutions Development Fund (FIDF) from the current 0.46% to 0.23% of total deposits. Financial institutions will also contribute additional funding for the initiative.