<article>AIFUL Corporation, one of top four finance companies in Japan, has entered Thailand’s personal finance business, through a joint venture (JV) with AIRA Capital Public Limited Company. This is AIFUL&#8217; s first business foray in the ASEAN region.</article>

AIFUL Corporation, one of top four finance companies in Japan, has entered Thailand’s personal finance business, through a joint venture (JV) with AIRA Capital Public Limited Company. This is AIFUL&#8217; s first business foray in the ASEAN region.
The new JV firm, AIRA &amp; AIFUL PLC, will have a preliminary paid-up capital of one billion baht ($31.25 million) and will continue to increase its capital according to future expansion needs, said Nalinee Ngamsettamas, CEO of AIRA Capital and Director of AIRA &amp; AIFUL Company.
The new company’s structure will have AIFUL Corp as a 49% stakeholder, while AIRA Capital will hold 30% shares and the rest will be with the Thai investors. The company is already in the process of submitting documents for listing on the Stock Exchange of Thailand.
Katsuhiko Madono, CEO of AIRA &amp; AIFUL Company, said that they were targeting aggressive growth for the next three years. The company&#8217; a three-year business plan calls for it to become one if the top three personal finance companies in the country, by the end of that period. Currently, AEON and Easy Buy are the market leaders of Thailand’s personal finance space.
“Our company aims to have at least 500,000 customers in the first three years. But as the CEO, I hope we can have one million customers and 1,000 employees by that time,” revealed Madono.
In the first year, the company plans to develop a strong back-end, focusing mainly on the IT system and human resources. It also hopes to set up about 10 branches including mobile booths in Bangkok. “We are targeting to give personal loans worth more than one billion baht in the first year,&#8221; disclosed the company&#8217;s CEO.
For the second and third year, the finance major, plans to create a strong customer base while expanding its branch network all across the nation.  By the fourth year, it aims to start distributing profit to its shareholders. “This is AIFUL Corp &#8216;s first foray in the ASEAN region. We plan to use Thailand as a base to expand our business in other ASEAN countries after the ASEAN Economic Community takes off, next year,” said AIFUL’s president and CEO Yoshitaka Fukuda.
The company, which is staring its&#8217;s ASEAN operations in the personal finance business, plans to expand to other other financing businesses, soon, he added.

Japan's AIFUL enters Thailand, sets up JV

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Japan's AIFUL enters Thailand, sets up JV

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