GH Bank or Government Housing Bank ( th, ธนาคารอาคารสงเคราะห์; , Thai

initialism An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...

ธอส. ''tho-oso'') is a state enterprise reporting to the Thai Finance Ministry. Founded in 1953, its mission is to extend

mortgage A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law jurisdicions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners to raise funds for any pu ...

s to low-income earners.

History

On 9 January 1953,

King Bhumibol Adulyadej Bhumibol Adulyadej ( th, ภูมิพลอดุลยเดช; ; ; (Sanskrit: ''bhūmi·bala atulya·teja'' - "might of the land, unparalleled brilliance"); 5 December 192713 October 2016), conferred with the title King Bhumibol the Great ...

approved the ''Government Housing Bank Act , B.E. 2496''. The act was published in the ''Government Gazette'' on 29 January 1953. The act established a government housing bank as a specialized financial institution. The bank opened for business on 24 September 1953, which is considered the date of its founding. On the occasion of the 40th anniversary year in 1993, the bank changed its logo to a stylised image of "two hands embracing a house". The GH Bank website became operational the same year.

Operations

GH Bank is Thailand's largest mortgage lender. , it has 1.3 trillion

baht The baht (; th, บาท, ; sign: ฿; code: THB) is the official currency of Thailand. It is divided into 100 ''satang'' (, ). The issuance of currency is the responsibility of the Bank of Thailand. SWIFT ranked the Thai baht as the 10th-m ...

in outstanding loans. Most of the bank's customers have loans up to two million baht; its largest loans are seven to eight million baht. In 2019 its loan approval target is 203 billion baht. In 2019 GH Bank embarked on an initiative to increase its lending to high-income clients in addition to serving the low-income clients who are its reason for being. GH Bank is one of the few Thai state enterprises that contributes money to the treasury rather than rely on government for funding.

References

{{authority control Banks of Thailand State enterprises of Thailand