1. Dividend Payment Policy In considering a dividend payment, the bank will take into account the operating results and shareholders’ return in the long term. The payment of dividends will be in the bank’s Articles of Association, the key point being that an allocated dividend is to be divided equally by the number of shares and its payment must be approved at a shareholders’ meeting. The Board of Directors may occasionally pay interim dividends when the bank has a large enough profit to warrant it, in which case it will report to the shareholders at the next meeting. Furthermore, a dividend payment must be in compliance with the Bank of Thailand’s notifications and governing laws.
2. Regulations and criteria related to dividend payments According to the Bank of Thailand’s Notification on the criteria of the classification and allocation of allowances, a financial institution which has not yet written off damaged assets from its balance sheets or allocated in full allowances for potentially damaged and undamaged assets and obligations may not pay dividends or other forms of remuneration to its shareholders. According to section 8 of the Bank of Thailand’s Notification on guidelines on accounting of financial institutions, financial institutions should not pay dividends from the transactions that result in unrealized gains or no real cash inflows such as profits from mark-to-market trading securities or the reclassification of financial assets. Neither should they pay dividends from the profits arising from the sale of assets which does not actually take place which generate a higher profit or lower loss, such as profits from the sale of foreclosed assets under the condition that financial institution may repurchase or obtain the rights to repurchase them in the future.
