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Parithad Petampai wasn\u2019t sure he\u2019d be ready to take over the CEO role at Muangthai Capital, Thailand\u2019s largest microlender. Parithad\u2019s parents\u2014his father Chuchat Patcharachai and his mother Daonapa Petampai\u2014had founded the company over three decades prior. <\/p>\n
Last August, Parithad was catapulted into the position of CEO, after a court deemed Chuchat legally incapacitated. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been sitting next to my dad for almost twelve years, yet he didn\u2019t let me touch the wheel. I was always worried about how I\u2019d be able to drive the car,\u201d Parithad told Fortune <\/em>on the sidelines of Maybank\u2019s Invest ASEAN Summit in Singapore. \u201cBut when the day came, it felt automatic.\u201d<\/p>\n Chuchat passed away in April, just months after his son took over as CEO last August. Daonapa continues to serve as managing director, while Parithad\u2019s brother Suksit sits on Muangthai\u2019s board of directors.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not easy,\u201d Parithad admitted, pointing to generational differences between him and his parents. \u201cMy mom is very traditional. It took me two years to convince her to allow workers to input information digitally, rather than writing everything on paper first!\u201d<\/p>\n Chuchat and Daonapa founded the business in 1992 as Muangthai Leasing, a motorcycle financing operation. \u201cWe came from a poor family,\u201d Parithad explained. \u201cMy grandparents were Chinese immigrants who moved to Thailand.\u201d<\/p>\n The couple listed Muangthai on Thailand\u2019s stock exchange in 2014, raising 3 billion Thai baht ($89.9 million) during its IPO. \u201cBefore we IPO-ed, Muangthai only focused on Thailand\u2019s central and northern areas,\u201d Parithad said. \u201cBut as the company matured and grew, we also moved into the eastern part of the country.\u201d<\/p>\n Parithad joined his parents\u2019 company in 2015, following brief stints as an analyst at Goldman Sachs in London and Kasikornbank in Thailand.<\/p>\n The firm, renamed Muangthai Capital in 2018, now operates over 9,000 physical branches across Thailand. Muangthai ranks No. 295 on Fortune<\/em>\u2019s Southeast Asia 500 list, with 2025 revenue of 30.74 billion Thai baht ($936 million).<\/p>\n When asked how he balances profitability and social aims at Muangthai, he answered, with some exasperation that he wasn\u2019t \u201cthe kind of person who works for money.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m more of a person who enjoys the impact a role helps me to create. People don\u2019t really understand me sometimes,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Muangthai operates in Thailand\u2019s booming microlending space, where financial firms provide small, short-term loans to people and businesses with limited access to capital. The country\u2019s microfinance market is expected to reach 273 billion baht ($8.2 billion) by 2027, according to the Asian Development Bank in 2023. Other notable Thai microlenders include the Srisawad Corporation and Thai Credit Bank.<\/p>\n Parithad said his company targets Thailand\u2019s bottom 10%. \u201cWithout our money, the people will struggle,\u201d he explained. \u201cFarmers will not be able to buy fertilizers, parents can\u2019t foot their children\u2019s school fees, and those who run into accidents won\u2019t be able to afford medical treatment for their wounds.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet the microlending industry can be a problematic one. Microlenders offer loans at high-interest rates, averaging between 28% and 33% annually. Critics say the industry can send vulnerable borrowers into cycles of debt, and cause them to fall victim to further predatory lending, asset seizures, and forced labor.\u00a0<\/p>\n The risk is especially clear in Thailand\u2019s neighbor, Cambodia, where a booming microfinance industry has led to worrying levels of debt among borrowers. According to the Wall Street Journal, microfinance borrowers in Cambodia now owe over $3,900 on average, more than three times the median income. One in ten loans are more than 30 days overdue. A watchdog inside the World Bank, in a late June report, accused the industry of engaging in pressure tactics and paying insufficient attention to a borrower\u2019s ability to pay.\u00a0<\/p>\n Parithad carefully pushed back against some of these criticisms about microfinance. \u201cIf you want to create a large social impact, your business has to be profitable, but the profits must be capped at a moderate level,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn the long run, if our customers\u2019 lives get better, instead of coming to Muangthai with a motorbike, they might come to us with pick-up trucks and bigger ticket items\u2014so we\u2019ll grow together with them.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, Parithad says some traditional sources of capital, like the Thai government and local banks, are wary of Muangthai and other microfinance providers. In March, the Bank of Thailand warned of rising financial costs for local micro-SMEs, which \u201cincreasingly rely on nano-finance loans\u201d despite their high interest rates and credit risks.<\/p>\n \u201cWe should be supported more by the Thai government,\u201d Parithad said. \u201cAll the support that we receive is from international organizations like the Asian Development Bank, International Finance Corporation, the German Investment Corporation and the Japan International Cooperation Agency.\u201d<\/p>\n In September 2024, Muangthai issued a landmark $335 million social bond on the Singapore Exchange, where JPMorgan served as the sole global coordinator. \u201cWhen we faced challenges in the Thai bond market, the help we received was from JPMorgan,\u201d Parithad said. \u201cWe also received lots of loans from foreign Japanese, Taiwanese and Chinese banks, but where were the Thai entities?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThose in my country see us as a threat.\u201d<\/p>\n After years of political instability, analysts are more optimistic that a new government, led by Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, might be able to pass new economic policies and revive the country\u2019s economy. Thailand\u2019s benchmark SET Index is up by 28% year-to-date, ahead of markets in Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWith a new prime minister, the stock market has shown confidence,\u201d Parithad said. He also points to credit rating agency Moody\u2019s recent decision to upgrade Thailand\u2019s credit outlook from negative to stable.\u00a0<\/p>\n He\u2019s also optimistic that Thailand can benefit from the U.S.-China trade war, as trade gets diverted to new countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n And Thailand could stand to gain as Beijing and Washington compete for friends. \u201cAs the Chinese and Americans have conflict, Thailand can become the back door,\u201d he said. \u201cHopefully, the two superpowers will deploy more technology to my people, and we can earn more income.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSoutheast Asia will become one of the highlights of the world. I\u2019m excited to see how money will be deployed to this region, and how Chinese technology like EVs will impact people in my country.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Muangthai #Capitals #CEO #Parithad #Petampai #navigates #succession #microfinance #scrutiny<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Parithad Petampai wasn\u2019t sure he\u2019d be ready to take over the CEO role at Muangthai Capital, Thailand\u2019s largest microlender. Parithad\u2019s parents\u2014his father Chuchat Patcharachai and his mother Daonapa Petampai\u2014had founded… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8499,369,13324,13320,13323,13321,13322,4478,3741,5983,11385],"class_list":["post-11949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-capitals","tag-ceo","tag-microfinance","tag-muangthai","tag-navigates","tag-parithad","tag-petampai","tag-scrutiny","tag-southeast-asia-500","tag-succession","tag-thailand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}How Thailand\u2019s largest microlender got started<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\u2018Without our money, the people will struggle\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Microlending challenges<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Thailand and the world<\/strong><\/h2>\n