The central bank of Thailand has removed a limit on banks' dividends and required them to pay a regular fee rate to the Financial Institutions Development Fund FIDF from next year, officials said.
The central bank said that there was less need for broad-based support measures that can be normalised gradually with a clearer economic trend and strong banks.
The central bank said that banks could cope with risks now that their dividends were limited to no more than 50 per cent of annual profit.
The FIDF of the central bank provides financial assistance to troubled institutions.
After a reduction in the 0.23 per cent rate, banks will have to pay an annual fee rate of 0.46 per cent of their deposits to the FIDF from 2023, according to the Bank of Thailand BOT.
Over the past two years, various fiscal and financial support measures had been introduced, with the benchmark kept at a record low of 0.5 per cent to support the economy, senior director Sakkapop Panyanukul told a news conference.
He said that the need to build it up will become more necessary in the future, because we've used quite a lot of policy space.
The interest rate hike was also signaled by the BOT.
Senior Director Suwannee Jatsadasak said the BOT would continue to help with debt restructuring and a surge in bad debt was not expected.