Nature of Business

We are committed to become a leading lender to the long tail segment in Thailand, focusing on offering fast, convenient and simple financing products to customers. We believe that our strength lies in an extensive distribution network. As of December 31, 2021, we had 1,286 branches across 74 provinces in Thailand, which are supported by a wide referral and online customer engagement channels, all of which provide us with quick, on-site and online access to potential clients. We do not charge pre-loan approval fees, and we provide loan for used vehicle registration of up to 25 years.

Our lending primarily takes the form of vehicle title loans to individuals, which are secured by the title to vehicles such as motorcycles, cars, trucks and tractors. These loans carry a maximum annual interest rate as prescribed by law.

Vehicle Title Loans

Car and motorcycle title loans typically have a term of 12 to 60 months. For other types of vehicles, our title loan terms range from 12 to 72 months, and the maximum age of the underlying secured asset is typically 15, 20 and 25 years for motorcycles, cars and trucks, respectively. We normally evaluate the vehicles underlying the title registration book that is delivered as security physically at our branches, assessing the brand, model, condition and age, benchmarking these factors against market prices stored in our centralized system as established by reputable third-party valuation experts and our internal valuation experts.

In addition to vehicle title loans, we also offer hire-purchase financing in a type of sale-leaseback arrangement, whereby customers sell us a used vehicle that we then lease back to the customer. Likewise, ownership of the relevant vehicle will then transfer to the customer once such customer has fully repaid all principal and interest on all loans and arrangements. Hire-purchase loans with security granted in the form of a motorcycle as the underlying asset usually have a term of 12 to 24 months. Loans secured by other types of vehicles have a term of 12 to 72 months. Hire purchase loans require an asset owner to transfer the ownership and deliver the original registration of the asset, which could be, for example, a car, a motorcycle or a truck, to us and as security. Ownership of the vehicle is only transferred to our customers once the loans and arrangement are fully repaid (sale and leaseback).

Truck Loans

In 2011, we also launched our used truck hire-purchase financing and used truck title loan products for truck operators seeking to finance their working capital or business expansion, which is now our primary hire-purchase product.

While other major market participants focus their business on new trucks, we do not offer hire-purchase financing for new trucks. Currently, we are the top-ranked lender in terms of portfolio size in the used truck hire purchase segment. Our customers for truck lending are generally self-employed entrepreneurs as well as operators with truck fleets. Our extensive branch network with more than 1,286 branches nationwide allow us to provide services to clients on the spot without charge before loan approval. We offer a credit line up to 20 million Baht, accepting trucks up to 25 years old.

Revolving Cash Card

Having observed that vehicle title loan borrowers, particularly those pledging title of motorcycles and cars as security, frequently re-apply for new loans on or prior to the completion of their initial borrowing, we launched our Revolving Cash Card in 2019. The Revolving Cash Card provides our existing vehicle title loan customers with an additional channel to access their loans other than receiving cash at our branches or via wire transfer to such customers’ bank account. Customers receive open credit lines in reference to the value of the asset provided as security and are able to access such lines of credit directly from over than 40,000 ATMs of commercial bank partners across Thailand, 24 hours a day, and seven days a week. We had issued more than 285,000 Revolving Cash Cards to our customers as of December 31, 2021.

The Revolving Cash Card effectively acts as a revolving credit facility, for which interest is applied daily to the drawn amount and repayment is made monthly. The interest rate is specified in an agreement with each customer. Customers can find details about their interest rate and repayment periods in their respective contracts. The minimum amount that can be withdrawn at a time is THB 500, which is automatically converted into the drawn amount on the loan. The maximum amount that can be withdrawn at a time cannot exceed the remaining credit limit. When a customer withdraws cash using the Revolving Cash Card, the increased credit will extend the total repayment period. In addition, the Revolving Cash Card helps to reduce our costs and resources needed to conduct a credit review and process loans; for customers, the card eliminates the need to re-submit credit application documents, which requires customers taking time off from their jobs to visit our branches. By being able to draw down on their loan at any time, including outside of branch operating hours, our customers are able to access funds when needed with more flexibility.

We are Thailand’s leading technology-enabled, omni-channel insurance broker with an advanced InsurTech platform that provides consumers with a convenient way to compare and purchase automobile, personal accident, loan payment protection, and cancer insurance policies from leading insurance companies in Thailand. The Company hold both life and non-life insurance broker licenses granted by the Office of Insurance Commission. These licenses enable us to offer various motor and non-motor insurance policies, including motor insurance, personal accident insurance, loan payment protection insurance and health insurance (e.g., cancer coverage).

We are focused on developing a unique, tech-based insurance brokerage business which differentiates us from the other service providers in our same industry. As an insurance broker, we earn commissions from our insurance partners for the policies we sell on their behalf. We originally started our non-life insurance brokerage business by offering insurance products to our loan customers. However, we have recently developed a diverse set of online and offline customer acquisition channels for our insurance brokerage business. Our primary sources of leads include branch walk-ins, search engine marketing, television advertising, and third-party marketing partners. Our insurance brokerage business benefits from decades of investment into our brand and branch network. For the year ended December 31, 2021, our voluntary motor insurance premiums for insurance renewals increased continuously and they continue to be a growing source of income without requiring any additional acquisition costs. This demonstrates a strong and sustainable business model, as such patterns reflect the recurring nature of our market share.

We continue to invest in strengthening Ngern Tid Lor brand for our insurance brokerage business and in increasing our online customer engagement in order to optimize our acquisition costs. Our technology platform is also custom built and designed to collect data of the claim experience of the policies we have sold. Our data analytics team builds upon the data to study the potential loss of different car types, ages, brands, and customer demographics.

We believe our digital distribution and data analytics capabilities will allow us to better serve our customers by providing better pricing algorithms, cross-selling other financial products and improving loss for our insurance partners. We are a critical part of the insurance distribution value chain. We believe our insurance partners can benefit from our data analytics capabilities in the future. At the same time, we strive to become trusted advisors to our customers in their insurance purchase and renewal decisions, which will result in continuity of our income. Even though we do not bear any underwriting risk, we believe our data collected from of insurance distribution and claims would benefit our provision of services around underwriting and risk management in the future.

Our proprietary, self-developed platform is a key competitive strength and a key driver of the growth of our insurance brokerage business. Our platform includes comparison and quote algorithms, claim monitoring and notification, premium payment (whether for payments in full or by installment), and renewal management. It services our branches, our mobile application, telesales agents and our growing sub-broker network. Our platform is integrated with our insurance partners and offers instantaneous price quotes and insurance coverage features for our customers.

In addition, we are preparing to introduce a straight-through policy renewal service for our insurance customers via our mobile application, which will further increase the efficiency and capability of our offerings for our customers. We believe our flexible technology platform will enable us to add more products and services in the future, remove paperwork, reduce frictions for both insurance partners and customers, and increase business volume and efficiency for our insurance partners.

In 2017, we began offering an innovative 0% interest cash instalment financing option to motor insurance customers for a maximum of six installments to ease our customers’ burden where most operators in our industry typically only offer this option if the relevant customer has designated credit cards. This financing option has given us a significant advantage in acquiring customers who cannot afford motor insurance, as customers find the insurance products offered by us more accessible and are able to better manage their own cash flows.

In addition to the Company’s direct to customer insurance distribution business, we have branded our platform under the brand of “Areegator”. The Areegator platform is an online insurance marketplace platform providing a customized solution for traditional work problems faced by licensed individual insurance brokers, by allowing them to benefit from our InsurTech and grow their business with less cash required as security deposits and we anticipate that it will be another sustainable income generating channel for the Company in the long term.