The Thai capital market is facing a crucial turning point amid the global financial system's transition into the digital era, where technologies such as AI, tokenization, and digital assets are playing increasingly significant roles.
At the same time, Thailand must urgently address structural challenges, including an aging population and limited access to funding for SME entrepreneurs, to enhance competitiveness and create long-term growth opportunities for the Thai economy.
In response to these challenges, the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) is accelerating efforts to enhance the role of the Thai capital market beyond just an investment mechanism, focusing on increasing business access to funding alongside developing infrastructure to support future financial innovations.
This ranges from adopting AI to improve business efficiency to transitioning toward a digital securities system that could enable the Thai stock market to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week in the future.
Professor Kittipong Uraipipatpong, Chairman of the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET). He told Thairath Money about the direction and development plans for the Thai capital market following participation in the IMF-World Bank Group Annual Meetings 2026, noting that the financial world is rapidly entering the digital age and the Stock Exchange is ready to adapt to support new financial innovations, both in business promotion and enhancing future securities payment systems.
From lessons learned at the conference about Thailand and other countries, it was observed that although Thailand has strong financial institutions and money markets and continues to attract foreign direct investment (FDI),
the country still faces challenges from an aging society and obstacles for SME business operations. Therefore, the Thai capital market focuses on assisting the business sector and supporting New Economy businesses and target industries to access capital markets efficiently.
Furthermore, data shows that about 30% of SMEs still lack access to funding. The SET is preparing collaborative approaches with various sectors to support these SMEs in working with listed companies as part of the supply chain.
This aims to increase their opportunities to access capital while applying AI technology to enhance labor skills and improve the efficiency of both SMEs and listed companies.
Hosting the IMF-World Bank Group Annual Meetings 2026 will elevate Thailand on the global stage, providing an important opportunity for Thai investors to follow information and develop knowledge for investing domestically and internationally.
The Chairman of the SET. He further revealed that central banks and global regulatory bodies worldwide are accelerating studies on tokenization, stablecoin use, and digital cross-border payments,
which are expected to significantly transform payment systems and collateral management within the next two to three years.
In Thailand, the SET is equipped with infrastructure through Settrade, which can be developed as a platform to support payment and delivery systems. To advance the digital era, the SET is promoting initiatives such as eliminating physical share certificates to fully digitalize the system and studying stock fragmentation to subdivide shares.
Regarding extending trading hours to a 24/7 system, the SET Chairman estimates that initially, the focus will be on shortening the settlement cycle from T+2 to T+1, which is expected to be achieved soon.
Full 24/7 trading may take longer but remains a future goal, feasible once securities transition into digital assets and the global financial system becomes interconnected.
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