The Finance Ministry will test in a sandbox the use of utility bill data by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to support their applications for new loans from state-owned financial institutions, said Chuenchob Kongudom, vice-minister to the Prime Minister.
The test will be piloted in April, he added.
He said some SMEs have been unable to access new loans from commercial and state financial institutions as they remain on a National Credit Bureau (NCB) blacklist.
As part of the test, the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA), which has 19 million power users, will be the first state utility agency to link its information with the bureau.
Borrowers will have to subscribe to Krungthai Bank’s Pao Tang e-wallet application and verify themselves on the app and then provide an e-consent to the app to send their utility bill data to the NCB.
The bureau will then…
