The strategic plan was announced at the SEC Conference on Driving Capital Market toward Transformation, Growth and Sustainability on 25 February 2020 at The Athenee Hotel Bangkok. The conference also featured SEC Chairman’s opening speech, SEC Secretary-General’s overview of the strategic plan, and SEC Management’s presentations on key developmental areas.

SEC Chairman Voravidh Champeeratana said: “The landscape of the Thai capital market is constantly changing and becoming more complex. SEC’s role is to lay out directions and policies adaptive to such change and in line with the National Strategy, the policy statement of the government and developmental plans in order to achieve the country’s vision of becoming a developed country with security, prosperity and sustainability. To support the national goal, our strategic plan aims to meet four key objectives of sustainable development, financial inclusion, strengthening competitiveness and building trust and confidence. Amid this fast changing and hard-to-predict landscape, policy implementation must be timely and effective, and a key to achieve tangible results is to implement clear and efficient action plans with cooperation from all sectors.

SEC Secretary-General Ruenvadee Suwanmongkol said: “In laying out the strategic plan, SEC paid close attention to the current market landscape, emerging trends and challenges, and emphasized active engagement of all sectors to make sure that the capital market will continue to serve the country’s important demands. This is the first time that an SEC strategic plan has given a particular emphasis on the alignment with the 20-Year National Strategy (2018- 2037),  the 12th National Economic and Social Development Plan (2017 - 2021), including 23 master plans and the policy statement of the Council of Ministers regarding 12 developmental areas. With this strategic plan, SEC is driving the capital market towards the four core objectives of Sustainability, Financial Inclusion, Competitiveness and Connectivity, and Trust. To achieve the objectives, we are building an organization on the principle of “SEC Strengthening the Foundation,” focusing on Delegation, Empowerment, Communication, Integration, Development and Engagement (DECIDE), to ensure a stable and sustainable regulatory agency and the Thai capital market.”  

SEC Deputy Secretary-General Sirivipa Supantanet gave a presentation on the topic, “A New Age of Fundraising,” emphasizing the role of SEC in creating opportunities for businesses of all sizes to access sources of fund, while the disclosure-based supervision will not impose excessive costs on small and medium-sized businesses and startups. SEC will also continue to develop fund-raising platforms and channels suitable for new generation investors and promote investment products in response to the objective of sustainability. Concurrently, investor education campaigns will continue and cover all demographics.

SEC Deputy Secretary-General Waratchya Srimachand gave a presentation on the topic, “Strengthening Market Competitiveness and Building Retirement Well-Being,” featuring how capital market competitiveness can reduce obstacles to intermediaries’ business operation and increase investor protection. More emphasis will be given to promoting retirement savings through provident funds and investment products designed for financial well-being after retirement.

SEC Deputy Secretary-General Sakkarin Ruamrang gave a presentation on the topic, “Building Insights on Financial Crimes in a Digital Age for Stronger Market Confidence,” emphasizing the importance of prevention and suppression of crimes, from the beginning to the end of the process, for market oversight in the digital age. In this respect, SEC has set an enforcement direction that focuses on detecting, arresting, prompt proceeding and imposing proportionate sanctions, to build trust and confidence in the capital market.

SEC Assistant Secretary-General Kumpol Sontanarat gave a presentation on the topic, “Digital Transformation for the Capital Market,” highlighting SEC digital transformation that incorporates digital technologies into work processes and provides a shared infrastructure to facilitate connectivity among business sectors, both existing and new, and market participants in order to accelerate product and service innovations. Also, cybersecurity has been enhanced industry-wide and regular cybersecurity drills are conducted to ensure effective risk management.

In addition, the conference featured a panel discussion on the topic, “Perspectives on SEC Strategic Plan” by honored guests, namely Mr. Santi Viriyarongsaris, Editor-in-Chief of Money and Banking Magazine, Asst. Prof. Dr. Nuttapon Nimmanphatcharin, President and CEO of the Digital Economy Promotion Agency, Mr. Paiboon Nalinthrangkurn, Chairman of the Federation of Thai Capital Market Organizations, and Mr. Yunyong Thaicharoen, Ph.D., First Executive Vice President of Siam Commercial Bank PCL (SCB) and SCB Economic Intelligence Center. The panelists discussed the strategic plan and agreed in general that it is comprehensive in all important areas. However, more focus should be given to investor education, product innovation and appropriate channels for different target groups. On the same token, businesses should make proper preparations and have a clear understanding of the roles and responsibilities of a public company before raising fund in the capital market. The panel also suggested that digital technology should be used more extensively for the benefit of capital market development.

The Strategic Plan 2020-2022 consists of seven strategies as follows:
            (1)  Establishing an Ecosystem for Sustainable Capital Market: To encourage issuers to appreciate the benefits of ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) integration in business operation and to disclose the outcome of ESG practices on ‘One Report’. To promote creation of investment products for sustainability such as green bond and social bond, to promote local reviewer/ assessors, to make ESG standards available in Thai for ease of access, to encourage the establishment of an ESG information center to facilitate investment decision making, and to develop a national roadmap concerning sustainability-related issues in the financial sector, including the capital market, and the issue of human rights in business operation to push forward concrete implementation;  
            (2)  Promoting Financial Well-Being of Thai People: To promote financial literacy and raise awareness of long-term savings and investment among target populations, both in Bangkok and provincial areas, via appropriate channels, to support measures for long-term investment through provident funds and mutual funds, including developing products to meet investors’ long-term investment goals;
            (3)  Supporting SME Growth and Financing: To lay out a direction for developing small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) capability of choosing effective and suitable tools for their needs and to create tools and environments that are diverse and suitable for different types, sizes and growth of SMEs, to issue funding rules that facilitate access to sources of fund and allow securities offering in the types of share and convertible bond to investors directly and through the Stock Exchange while coaching  SMEs and startups with good potential and preparedness;   
            (4)  Enhancing Competitiveness and Creating Opportunities from International Connectivity: To enable regulatory framework by conducting a regulatory guillotine project to streamline processes, reduce unnecessary costs, and enhance flexibility for business operation, and by amending securities business licensing rules to meet the changing landscape and enhance competitiveness. Meanwhile, SEC creates new opportunities for business operators by playing proactive roles on global forums, establishing coalition with international organizations and leading capital markets, and pushing forward the role of the Thai capital market as CLMV (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam) springboard to promote mutual sustainable growth in the region by, for example, launching the issuance and offering of financial products and services among CLMV capital markets;   
            (5)  Optimizing Digital Technology to Increase Capital Market Potential and Supervisory Effectiveness: To leverage technology to deliver better access to capital market, to amend regulations to accommodate the use of technology in the KYC (Know-Your-Customer) process (or e-KYC), to issue regulations related to the use of  “single form” for securities transactions to facilitate standardized filing of customer profiles and increase investors’ convenience of opening an account, to review the Emergency Decree on Digital Asset Businesses B.E. 2561 (2018) to ensure its sufficiency and suitability for the current circumstances, and to elevate cyber resilience and ensure strict compliance with cybersecurity framework;  
            (6)  Enhancing the Preventive Capability of the Law and Effective Enforcement: To leverage the use of technologies to increase preventive efficiency and e-enforcement by developing existing software to accommodate digital asset trading surveillance, detect anomalies, identify demeanors and gather and prove evidence, and to promote the use of class action and establish an investor remediation fund for illegal activities in violation of the securities laws;
            (7)  Monitoring and Assessing Systemic Risks in a timely manner: To develop database and enhance efficiency of frameworks for monitoring and analyzing systemic risk to examine circumstances and detect weaknesses promptly and prevent severe effects on the overall capital market. In addition, SEC engages with business operators and other regulatory agencies to collectively mitigate systemic risk and prevent its widespread impacts on investors, and to prepare an emergency plan for crisis management to prevent possible impacts on the capital market and the financial sector.

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