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Feature: Floating Bank, Not Just Business
Pratin, a 35-year-old Bankokian woman, stands on a small wooden pier on the right side of the Chao Phayara river, just steps away from her house in one of the hundreds of local riverside communities.
With several thousand-baht notes and a bankbook in one hand, she plans to deposit the money, which she earned by selling Chinese snacks during the past week. But she does not need to walk to the bank for the task.
Actually, the bank will come to her.
World's first floating bankAfter just less than 10 minutes' waiting, with the roar of a diesel engine, a four-meter outboard emerges in front of her and the boatman holds out a two-meter bamboo rod.
Pratin puts the money and bankbook into the plastic bag in a basket attached to one end of the rod while greeting the man aboard and chatting with him about family, like old friends.
The man then enters the cabin which occupies the front half of the boat, where five clerks are working at the desks: One is tapping the computer keyboard and two others are checking bank accounts while the others are preparing some documents. And a big, dark safe stands in the corner. All this makes it just another ordinary bank office, except the location and the boatman who sits beside the steering wheel and reminds you that the bank office is in a boat.
At first sight, the old-fashioned vessel bears no striking features among all the canoes, steam boats and tour ships along the river. It is old and even looks shabby. But the Thai characters printed on its side declare its uniqueness: Om Sin 33 (No. 33, The Government Saving Bank).
And this is the world's first floating bank and one of the several boats which offer mobile banking services in the current world.
Just in a while, Pratin gets back her bankbook. She takes a glance at the numbers in her account and then in apparent satisfaction, waves good-bye to the boat.
Trust which lasts for generations "My father and I have been their customers for decades and now my son began depositing his money in this floating bank," Pratin told Xinhua.
Since Thailand's Government Saving Bank (GSB) launched its first floating service in 1958, it has gradually gained "customer loyalty" among the tens of thousands of riverside residents along the Chao Phayara, the main waterway of the capital city, as well as its tributaries.
"And indeed it is convenient for people like us who live along the river. The boat passes my house regularly every day. And when I need the bank, I will wait here and I know for sure when they will come," Pratin said sincerely.
Moreover, people like her regard the bank as more reliable and trustworthy, because it is owned by the government and they thus believe it will never go bankrupt, like many private banks which collapsed during recent years amid the financial crisis.
According to Surasak Teeramaytee, manager of the boat bank, the GSB is currently the sole bank which still makes profit in Thailand, because it is less involved in the property market whose failure added a huge amount of bad loans to most Thai banks. And this has further boosted its reputation among the riverside customers, most of whom are low-income earners.
On every weekday, shine or rain, Surasak and his subordinates set off at 8:30 a.m. from the Pak Khlong Talat pier near the Grand Palace of Bangkok, beginning their day-long banking trip along the Chao Phayara and the Bangkok Noi canal. They normally travel 30 kilometers before reaching Wat Bote in the nearby Nonthaburi Province and turning back.
Pratin's community usually is their first stop. Surasak said he can even remember the locations, names and faces of all regular customers. But to make sure that every person who wishes to deposit or withdraw money can get the service, the bank distributes a kind of triangle blue flags bearing the GSB logo among the riverside communities.
Wherever the blue flag flies, on a house or a pier along the river, the floating bank will make a stop.
Prapom, a 70-year-old retired government official, waves the flag as he sits leisurely in front of his riverside wooden house.
When seeing the floating bank approaching, he just summons his daughter-in-law and grandson to deposit money.
"My family and the bank have known each other very well for nearly 30 years. We trust them, it becomes part of our life," declared Prapom, whom the bank clerks call "grandpa."
Actually, the old man has developed such a close relationship with the floating bank that he flared up when one of his grandsons dared to think of depositing money in another bank for its higher interest rate. "They should know the GSB has much more credibility," he declared.
His view is echoed by the vendors in the waterside Bangkok Noi market, where the floating bank has about 100 customers. Chamras, a peddler, said people there still prefer the mobile banking service although a bank recently set up a branch on land nearby.
Not just business A fruit vendor rows his canoe rapidly toward the floating bank, hands several notes across the window to a clerk and hurries away.
Surasak explained that lots of long-time customers often just drop the money in the bank like the vendor because they fully trust the bank and the clerks will do the rest for them.
"Usually, these things only happen between relatives and family members. We feel the relations between the bank and customers are much more than business. They are homy," he stated.
And as an evidence of the close relationship, a riverside shop-owner offers free water to the bank clerks every working day and
treats them like her own relatives or family members. Tongkan Sawat, a grocery boss, has forged intimate ties with those clerks in the floating bank during past 20 years.
She knows the names of all the people who have worked at the floating bank during the past years. "The clerk will come to me to say good-bye before he or she leaves the boat to work in another place," she recalls.
Obviously, profit is not the major reason for the GSB to continue its floating service, which deals with fewer than 100 accounts per day, with a collective sum of just around 30,000 baht (US$700).
As the capital city expands its business and adds modern facilities, the riverside population is on the decline in a metropolis which was known as "Venice in the Orient" in its old days when the Chao Phayara and canals were main transportation means.
As a result, the number of GBS floating branches has contracted from four in the beginning of the service 42 years ago to one at present. But the bank has decided to keep the last floating service, for promoting its image and bringing maximum convenience to the riverside customers.
Moreover, in a world where the bankers are in a trend to employ new technologies such as the Internet and mobile phone to provide financial service to the homes of customers, the decades-old operation of Thailand's floating bank attracts wide international interest.
Surasak said that during recent years, foreign bankers and media have come to visit his boat and the Swedes even copied the GSB model to set up a floating banking service in their own country.
"We will also introduce high technologies to the boat, such as online links with the GSB network. The floating bank has become a unique feature of our bank and even of the whole Thai banking sector and it is more than just a business," he said.
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