The Bank of Thailand said on Thursday that its Financial Institutions Policy Committee has approved draft rules bringing buy-now-pay-later lending under a dedicated licensing regime, with the framework due to take effect in the fourth quarter of 2026. Governor Vitai Ratanakorn, speaking at the Prachachat Business "Beyond ESG: Thailand Transition" seminar in Bangkok, said the central bank will open a public hearing on the draft before the end of September and finalise the rules thereafter. The regime will cap individual credit lines at 20,000 baht per borrower, restrict interest and fees to a band of 15 to 20 per cent, and limit repayment terms to a maximum of six months. Approximately six operators currently active in the Thai market will be required to obtain the new licence or cease trading.
The measure responds to rapid expansion in a segment that has operated largely outside the central bank's supervisory perimeter. Vitai said BNPL lending in Thailand has grown tenfold over the past four years, with the user base rising from 600,000 to six million people. He added that more than 45 per cent of younger borrowers now take on their first debt through a BNPL product rather than a conventional credit facility — borrowing incurred for consumption rather than investment or working capital. The initiative forms part of a four-pillar structural agenda the central bank has pursued over the past ten months covering household and SME debt, credit access, fair financial services, and illicit financial flows.
LICENSING TERMS AND CONDUCT RESTRICTIONS
Under the draft, BNPL lending will be licensed within the existing personal loan supervisory framework, with the central bank concentrating its oversight on the credit provider rather than the merchant or platform. Minimum borrower age will be set within a range of 18 to 20 years, and providers will be required to assess repayment capacity before extending credit. The rules would also prohibit the withdrawal of BNPL credit lines as cash, closing a route through which instalment facilities can function as unsecured cash lending. The central bank is additionally considering minimum transaction values and restrictions on the categories of goods eligible for BNPL financing.
Advertising conduct falls within scope as well. The draft bars promotional material designed to stimulate borrowing beyond a customer's means, and requires providers to disclose full cost terms before a customer commits to a facility. Vitai framed the licensing condition in binary terms: operators that do not enter the system once the rules are published will not be permitted to continue in business. That places the roughly six incumbent providers — largely lenders financing purchases on online platforms — on a defined compliance timetable running from the fourth quarter.
EXTENDING OVERSIGHT ACROSS NON-BANKS
The BNPL framework sits alongside a parallel effort to deepen supervision of Thailand's non-bank financial sector, which comprises 3,624 registered operators across 24 business categories including personal loans, nano-finance, vehicle title lending, credit cards, payments, leasing and currency exchange. Non-banks account for 75 per cent of retail lending accounts and roughly 55 per cent of outstanding retail credit balances, exceeding the combined share of commercial banks and specialised financial institutions. Vitai said supervisory reviews identified operators charging interest and embedded fees of 25 to 33 per cent, and cases where linked e-wallet services pushed effective all-in rates as high as 35 per cent. The central bank intends to add supervisory staff and deploy artificial intelligence tools to monitor the segment.
The September consultation will determine how far the final calibration moves from the draft, particularly on the interest band and the age threshold, both of which are currently expressed as ranges rather than fixed figures. Operators will be watching whether the 20,000 baht cap applies per provider or across the borrower's aggregate BNPL exposure, a distinction that materially affects both origination volumes and the regime's effectiveness against debt stacking. The policy is being introduced against a backdrop of subdued growth — Vitai put expected 2026 GDP expansion at 2.3 per cent — with the policy rate held at 1.00 per cent, a level he described as low but appropriate for current conditions.