Abstract:
Due to the high economic growth in Thailand, many new financial instruments were introduced to support the financial system. One of the major financial instruments which increase its role in "Credit card". Since it introduces the ease of spending, and up to 45 days for settlement. The amount of spending through credit card had increased rapidly from 452 million baht in 1987 to 21.975 million baht in 1995. While the household saving continue to reduce from 16% in 1989 to 9% in 1995. This cause Bank of Thailand to realise the impact of credit card spending that may increase the overall spending of consumers and reduce the household saving. Bank of Thailand then issued the regulations to strictly control the credit card approval, and also reduce the amount of credit allowance, resulting decline in the card spending during 1996 and 1997. However, the research conducted in this thesis showed that the credit card could only marginally replace cash. Credit card spending has positive relation with the current account deposit in commercial banks, this means that the cardholders use both cheque and credit card as the payment instrument. It also found that credit card spending has positive relation with the saving and fixed deposits. This can be explained as the usage of card as emergency cash holding and while waiting for settlement, the cardholders can transfer cash for investment in the commercial bank's accounts. So if the regulator restricts the card spending, in long term it may partly effect the consumer's saving and reduce the liquidity in the system.