Thai virtual bank Clicx chose London software vendor Thought Machine on November 3 to run its core banking engine, clearing its infrastructure setup ahead of rival licence holders.
The consortium, owned by state-controlled lender Krungthai Bank, mobile carrier Advanced Info Service, and fuel and convenience retailer PTT Oil and Retail Business, is the first entrant to claim full operational readiness under the central bank schedule.
Clicx runs on Vault Core, a cloud system that separates ledger code from product rules. Instead of waiting on an outside vendor to modify backend code when rolling out credit products, the bank can adjust interest rate schedules and repayment periods directly. The bank targets nano-loans and digital personal credit at freelancers, daily wage earners, and mom-and-pop vendors who lack standard salary slips. Risk assessment relies on customer-consented behavioural records pulled from AIS mobile accounts, OR petrol stations, retail cash registers, and Krungthai payment networks.
How Real-Time Data Replaces Collateral
Virtual banks routinely promise financial inclusion, but uncollateralised micro-lending often collapses under high non-performing loans when underwriting relies on static quarterly statements. By feeding real-time merchant settlement receipts and telco top-up histories into its ledger, Clicx tries to calculate cash flow before a borrower misses a payment. If a roadside stall owner buys fuel and stock each morning through OR channels and accepts digital payments via Krungthai, the transaction frequency acts as the credit score.
That cross-ecosystem architecture brings operational friction. Merging customer profiles across three massive consumer databases requires strict compliance under Thailand’s Personal Data Protection Act, which governs explicit user consent, data correction, and deletion. Any technical glitch in how consent tags migrate across corporate systems can halt automated loan approvals at the point of sale.
The Tech Stack Behind the Build
Traditional lenders typically buy monolithic cores where a single product update takes months of regression testing. Vault Core operates differently by treating every account balance and transaction as an event-driven ledger entry, leaving the commercial logic in isolated microservices.
Wannasit Chaiphinan, CTO of Clicx, said: “We selected Vault Core because we needed a core banking platform that gives our team the flexibility to develop products around our customers’ needs. Its cloud-native architecture separates product logic from the underlying core infrastructure, allowing us to configure, test and refine products in-house with less dependence on vendor-led changes.”
For vendor Thought Machine, the contract adds Thailand to a regional footprint that includes client banks in Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The British tech firm recently crossed $100 million in annual recurring revenue with positive free cash flow, following a 57 per cent annual revenue gain.
Pressure on Traditional Branch Networks
The consortium model poses a clear threat to brick-and-mortar retail banking branches across suburban Thailand. While incumbent commercial banks pay commercial rents and staff teller counters to process small-business loans, Clicx uses the nationwide physical footprint of OR petrol stations and AIS customer service centres as passive marketing conduits.
Retail merchants who already purchase stock inside the OR retail ecosystem gain an incentive to keep their working capital accounts within the same network. Traditional mid-tier lenders must either compress their loan origination margins or watch self-employed borrowers migrate to platform-native digital lines of credit.
Consortium Timeline and Licensing Steps
The Bank of Thailand published its roster of successful virtual bank applicants on June 19, 2025, capping the initial framework at up to three operating licences. Regulatory guidelines required winning consortia to establish secure IT systems, risk controls, and capital cushions before receiving final clearance to open customer accounts.
The next concrete hurdle sits with the central bank inspectors, who must complete technical audits of the Vault Core integration and data privacy protocols before Clicx can formally accept public deposits and disburse its first commercial loans.
