Almost 90% of Thais’ deposit accounts is less than 50,000 baht
This figure is not just data but a strong warning sign of how fragile the Thai grassroots economy is because when people don’t have enough to spend, they put off saving money.
Many people in Thailand still rely on daily income to meet expenses, including daily wage earners, freelancers, online sellers or informal workers, and despite their income being uncertain they still have to cope with rising living costs, including food, travel, medical expenses and personal debt.
For some people, “savings” is a luxury that is not even accessible.
Having less than 50,000 baht in savings means that if an unexpected event occurs, such as unemployment, illness, or an economic crisis, this group of people will not have enough money to handle it. Moreover, when they retire, if they do not have savings, a pension and sufficient security, the risks they face multiplies.
This figure also shows that Thais’ financial literacy is still low with a lot of people not knowing how to manage money. They either do not know how to invest or misunderstand saving money such as thinking they can only invest if they have lots of money or are afraid of taking risk to the point of not daring to take their money out of savings accounts even though interest rates are very low.
At the same time, the education system and government policies have not yet promoted financial literacy as a “basic life skill” that everyone can access.
On the other hand, this data clearly reflects income inequality with less than 1% of people having deposits of tens of millions of baht or more and this group’s total savings is more than what 90% of the population’s savings.
At macro-policies level if inequality is not addressed from the structural level, or people’s ability to earn income does not increase saving, investing or retiring with stability will be just a “dream” that can only be realized by some groups of people.
Amount of deposits Number of accounts Total deposits (million baht)
Less than 50,000 124,889,457 473,313
50,000-100,000 4,396,299 310,725
100,000-200,000 3,514,177 487,475
200,000-500,000 3,281,782 1,041,050
500,000-1 million 1,640,675 1,175,765
1-10 million 1,837,849 4,571,142
10-25 million 107,726 1,608,807
25-50 million 51,271 1,139,443
50-100 million 30,913 1,051,440
A savings account image by Thai Rath
This report was originally published by www.thainewsroom.com
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