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Thailand Securities Depository Company Keen To Offer Its Services To More Provident Funds

Date 30/01/2003

The President of the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) as the Chief Executive Officer of the Thailand Securities Depository Co., Ltd. (TSD), Mr. Kittiratt Na-Ranong, said at the signing ceremony today (January 30 2003) appointing the TSD as the provident fund registrar for Krung Thai Asset Management Public Co., Ltd (KTAM) that "Since the middle of 2002, the TSD has started providing services through its service bureau to Retirement Mutual Funds as well as functioning as a fund registrar, and received a generally positive response from investment management companies."

"With twenty-five years of experience as a registrar, together with our modern computer system and lack of bias, we shall offer our services to more provident funds this year. The services will include information management to both employer's and employee's funds (members of the funds), such as information on net asset value, fund value, accumulated funds, related regulations and benefits, as well as call center services by phone or through the Internet. This will be, hence, a convenient one-stop service that we provide," Mr. Kittiratt said.

The Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Business Development Officer at KTAM, Ms. Prapa Puranachote, explained that KTAM has chosen TSD's registrar services because it has trust in TSD's expertise, efficient working system, modern computerized system for database storage. As well, the quick service that the TSD offers will attract more customers. Presently KTAM's provident funds have about 77,000 members in total.

"Furthermore, KTAM also plans to use the registrar service of the TSD for the mutual funds managed by the KTAM by the second quarter. The TSD already acts as the fund registrar for our Retirement Mutual Funds, the RMF1 and RMF2," Ms. Prapa said.

Currently KTAM has almost 70,000 million baht worth of assets under management: 38,619 million baht worth in provident funds, 6,080 million baht in private funds, 12,173 million baht in mutual funds, and 12,677 million baht in special funds.

The President of the TSD, Ms. Nongram Wongwanich, added that: "Providing the back office services to the funds has high potential for growth as the fund management business has high growth rates and the people increasingly pay more attention to investing through this channel as it provides a higher rate of return as well as tax benefits. In 2003, it is anticipated that there will be no less than fifty RMFs and provident funds using the service bureau of the TSD."

The TSD currently provides back office services for eight funds under management of Krung Thai Asset Management Plc., Primavest Asset Management Co., Ltd and ING Asset Management (Thailand) Co., Ltd.

Those signing on behalf of the TSD included Mr. Kittiratt, Ms. Nongram, and the Vice President of the Fund Registration Dept., Ms. Pannaporn Supsomboon, while on the KTAM side, Mr. Sumon Surathin, Director and the Chairman of the Audit Committee, Ms. Danucha Yindeepit, Director and the Audit Committee, plus Ms. Prapa Puranachote, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Business Development Officer, participated in the ceremony