JADA WATTANASIRITHAM IS the president of Siam Commercial Bank, Thailand’s oldest bank and also one of its best. Her bank has a leading position in retail and commercial banking as well as investment banking, asset management and wealth management, so few people can claim a better perspective on the market than Kunying Jada, as she is known, the most senior woman in the Thai financial services industry. Peter Koh speaks to her about the development of the Thai capital markets, the possibility of a free trade agreement with the US and prospects for the domestic economy.
Corporate financing in Thailand has changed dramatically over the past few years as the domestic bond market has developed and grown in importance. How has that changed the banking business?
That’s a very pertinent question. It has definitely had implications for how we run our business. We consider Siam Commercial Bank as the core of a financial services group that includes wholly owned subsidiaries in the businesses of investment banking, brokerage, insurance and asset management. We offer the whole range under one umbrella. We’ve had this set up for a number of years but what we have done in recent years is to integrate the group’s offerings much more tightly, so that when we go out to our clients we go out in full force as a team, across our network.