‘The Nation’ newspaper, one of two English dailies in Bangkok, has published a report on September 20th about Kasikornbank, the fourth-largest bank of Thailand that has recently joined the blockchain-based Visa B2B Connect program as one of their efforts to decrease cross-border payments.

Countries from ASEAN region are used to the high fees that come with payments from outside, due to the shortage of standard in integration. The development of technology gives them chance to change. It is without a doubt that Thailand is staying true to their ‘pioneer’ position when their fourth-largest bank, Kasikkornbank, having recently joined the blockchain-based Visa B2b Connect program.

The Nation also dubbed the Kasikorn Bank as the first bank in Thailand to use technology, setting the stage for a more widespread use of blockchain in the country’s banking sector. Leaders of the Kasikorn Bank expect to use blockchain, which has additional security for payments, hopefully bringing them the “throne in the industry”. This technology will also support the development of “security, governance, and distributed ledger technology.”

As every other Visa’s website, B2B Connect processed corporate cross-border payments by launching back in 2017. It did not take long for this project to secure its first partners. The U.S Commerce Bank, South Korea’s Shinhan Bank, the Union Bank of Philippines, and the United Overseas Bank in Singapore – all big players in the finance/banking space – consider joining.They saw the potential to make direct transactions from one to another via Visa’s B2B technology based on blockchain architecture.

Kasikkorn Bank, formerly known as Thai Farmers Bank, began their story with only five million baht of registered capital. Today they have $96 billion in assets and have quickly come up as one of the largest banks in Thailand.  

The Bank of Thailand (BoT) has prepared a Cointelegraph for local banks to allow them to set up subsidiaries for dealing with cryptocurrencies. If the regulation does not change, Thai banks will be allowed to issue digital tokens, providing crypto brokerage services, running crypto-related businesses, and investing in cryptocurrencies through subsidiaries.

As Cointelegraph wrote back in August, the Bank of Thailand (BoT) began to allow local banks to set up subsidiaries for dealing with cryptocurrencies. According to the regulation, Thai banks are allowed to issue digital tokens, providing crypto brokerage services, running crypto-related businesses, and investing in cryptocurrencies through subsidiaries.

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