Individuals can purchase bonds in three ways.
1. Issuers sell bonds directly to individuals. The main purpose is to provide an alternative to bank deposit or other sorts of savings. The issuer designates selling agents, and specifies eligible buyers, offered amount, and details of the bonds such as tenure, coupon rate and other conditions.
Recently, bonds sold directly to the general public include savings bonds issued by the Ministry of Finance, the Bank of Thailand (BOT) and the Financial Institutions Development Fund (FIDF).
In the past, the sales of newly issued savings bonds to the general public were conducted by the BOT and the Provincial Treasury Offices nationwide. Recently, however, some commercial banks and the Government Savings Bank have been authorized to be selling agents with the Bank of Thailand being responsible for supervising the sales, ownership registration and issuing the physical bond certificate.
2. Individuals can purchase bonds from other persons or from financial institutions where a list of institutions that quote prices of debt securities can be found at the website of the Thai Bond Market Association https://www.thaibma.or.th/bondmart/bondinvest_detail.aspx The agreed price may be higher or lower than the face value of the bond depending on the prevailing yield at the time of trade, the time to maturity of the bond, and the coupon rate of the bond. Those interested in trading the bond should compare the bid-offer prices quoted by several financial institutions. In addition, the yield curve may be used in assessing the bond prices. Additional information can be found at the Thai Bond Market Association website http://www.thaibma.or.th