Systems upgrades that allow different networks to share information will give the bank a better idea of how much clients and their subsidiaries are borrowing. Right now, banks in Thailand want to survive. That's the short-term strategy. Banks are struggling to recover loans before they start booking new ones. They're also loath to lend to companies still strapped with large debts and uncertain cash flow.
Banks have less than no capital left.
And though the barbarians are in the backyard, they're still fairly small. After the crisis hit, it was the first bank to raise capital when the market rose last year and then the first to issue hybrid debt-equity instruments to raise even more. On July 9, it announced the creation of a special asset-management unit to take care of its bad loans. Bangkok Bank soon followed with a similar plan. At one BBL branch on Pinklao Road in southern Bangkok, the automated teller machines are free even though a long line of customers waits for a teller.