Wasan Kardkarnklai, Anucha Thapayom, Pairat Pornpundejwittaya
Aim: The main aim of this research was to examine the guidelines for promoting SME entrepreneurs’ access to financial services in the digital economy.
Methodology: This research was an inductive research. The mixed-methodology including in-depth interview (qualitative research) and quantitative data collection (quantitative research) from 500 managers of the state-owned commercial banks and special financial institutions in Thailand. The data analysis was employed the structural equation model (SEM). Finally, the structural equation model was fit an in accordance with empirical data.
Finding: The results revealed that the guidelines for promoting SME entrepreneurs’ access to financial services in the digital economy. The highest means consisted of (1) financial product development, i.e. providing a complete and clear product description, introducing resources where clients can gain more product knowledge; (2) financial infrastructure management, i.e. assigning different levels of user access, allowing role-based access to the information as per user roles; (3) human resource management, i.e. promoting effective teamwork rather than individual focus; and (4) multichannel access, i.e. continuously and continually engage clients in multi-channel access plan. For the hypothesis test, the research found that commercial banks and special financial institutions weighed the guidelines for promoting SME entrepreneurs’ access to financial services in the digital economy with no difference at 0.05 of statistically significant level.
Conclusion: This research could be assumed that the main point to promote SME entrepreneurs’ access to financial services of the financial institutions in the digital economy. This is very important to organizational management guidelines to create the business opportunities. The firm should aware of the values the adaptation in the digital age under today’s rapidly changing technological environment. The analysis results of the structural equation model were satisfied through the evaluation criteria with the empirical data with the Chi-square probability of 0.055, the relative Chi-square of 1.142, the correlation index of 0.953, and the root index of the mean square of the error estimate of 0.017.