Every month, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) provides updates on progress and directions for developing Thailand's capital market. This time, several interesting topics emerged.
These range from adopting new technology to elevate investments, adjusting regulations to attract potential businesses to the capital market, to creating incentives encouraging Thais to invest long-term.
Thairath Money highlights three key developments: the upcoming launch of Thailand's first Tokenized MMF, attracting New Economy businesses to the stock market through an IPO Sandbox, and progress on TISA targeting tax benefits by the 2027 tax year.
Starting with the first to arrive soon in the digital asset market, the SEC is pushing to apply Tokenization technology to capital market products to enhance efficiency and broaden investment access.
Jomkwan Kongsakul, SEC Deputy Secretary-General, said the first innovation to become clear soon is the launch of Thailand’s first 'money market fund converted into digital tokens,' expected to be officially promoted and launched from late September to early October.
The Tokenized MMF will be offered by private asset management companies through the regular fund establishment process.
However, Atomic Swap technology and tokenization will be applied to address liquidity limitations, replacing the original T+1 redemption waiting period for MMFs.
It will switch to real-time T+0 redemption available 24 hours a day, allowing investors to redeem units and receive cash immediately, similar to bank withdrawals.
Regarding secondary market mechanisms and liquidity, dealers will act as intermediaries trading token units directly with investors, and service providers will collaborate to facilitate repurchase transactions.
The underlying technology will use Burn and Mint or Locked and Mint mechanisms to secure original securities during cross-blockchain transactions. This initial pilot can proceed immediately without legal amendments.
Prof. Dr. Pronong Bussaratakul, SEC Secretary-General, noted that Tokenized MMF is intended as a use case for shared learning among regulators, businesses, and investors.
This will pave the way to extend Tokenization and T+0 settlement to other traditional securities, such as foreign investment funds and equity funds in the future.
This aims to enable smaller unit sizes, increase trading liquidity, and broaden access for retail investors.
Simultaneously, the SEC is collaborating to promote the Electronic Securities Act, currently under parliamentary commission review, to establish regulatory frameworks, set central standards, and support an efficient secondary market for token securities to build long-term trust.
Another priority is supporting the supply side of Thailand's capital market. After a sluggish IPO market in 2026, the SEC and stock exchange aim to attract quality, high-potential companies.
Especially New Economy or innovation-based businesses, seen as new growth drivers to enhance national competitiveness.
Meanwhile, the SEC is streamlining the IPO approval process to be more concise and focused, while maintaining quality screening to protect investors.
Sucha Boonyanet, SEC Deputy Secretary-General, revealed progress: the SEC, stock exchange, and related associations have cooperated to reduce IPO approval time from an average of 147 days to a target of 70–100 days, counted from when a company files its prospectus and registration with the SEC.
Additionally, criteria have been eased for New Economy businesses by relaxing market capitalization and operating history requirements and linking benefits with BOI and EEC to enable faster access to capital markets and funding.
Initially, the SEC plans to pilot this approach through the IPO Sandbox with three companies, currently preparing and reviewing filings, expecting these companies to enter the pipeline between October and December.
After SEC approval, companies have six months to offer shares, extendable by another six months. Actual offering timing depends on each company's readiness and decisions.
Lastly, a key demand-side mechanism is the Thailand Individual Savings Account (TISA) project, which the SEC views as vital infrastructure to shift public behavior from cash savings or bank deposits to longer-term capital market investments.
Prof. Dr. Pronong Bussaratakul said that amid challenges like geopolitical conflicts, high bond yields, inflation, and growth concentrated in tech and AI sectors—all causing volatility in Thai investment flows—the SEC pursues a 'quality is the answer' strategy to strengthen both demand and supply sides, building a resilient capital market ecosystem for the long term.
TISA is designed under the concept of 'one account, two purposes': retirement savings and promoting investment for individuals and minors, aiming to expand Thailand’s investor base, which currently has under one million active stock trading accounts.
The SEC has submitted TISA proposals to the Cabinet and aims for tax benefit enforcement by the 2027 tax year.
Initially, investments through TISA will require about a five-year holding period aligning with long-term savings goals. Tax benefits and investment conditions will vary depending on each account's purpose.
The SEC is accelerating discussions on system details and infrastructure to support transactions, especially linking data with agencies like the Revenue Department to enable tax benefit claims and systematic investment in assets like stocks, dividends, bonds, and debt instruments.
Therefore, the next focus is not just tax benefit design but also building TISA as foundational infrastructure for long-term Thai savings and investment, serving as an important mechanism to expand the investor base and create quality demand in Thailand’s capital market.
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