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From the outside, Thai Credit Retail Bank is no different from other commercial banks. but inside every branch there is a closed-door corner where visitors can exchange gold for cash.

Gold is more liquid than property, says mr Mongkon. SURAPOL PROMSAKA NA SAKOLNAKORN

Those customers vary. Some are individuals in urgent need of money; others are gold traders and small business owners. what they have in common is the precious metal, whether in the form of a bracelet weighing one salueng (3.79 grammes) or in gold bars worth tens of millions of baht.

“In recent years, a growing number of people have begun buying gold and keeping it for savings,” said Mongkon Leelatum, the bank’s chief executive. “Instead of investing in land or houses, they have turned to gold, which has more liquidity than the other two.”

A gold coin is placed on a scale for analysis with the results displayed on a monitor.

Founded in early 2007, the five-year-old bank is part of the Thai Life Insurance Group of Companies and is wholly owned by the Chaiyawan family. the bank is the latest to win a retail banking licence from the Finance Ministry.

The Gold for Cash service is Thai Credit’s strategy to differentiate itself amid intense competition.

“Since the beginning of this year,” said mr Mongkon, “people have collected gold with confidence that it is a safe haven as the global economy is plagued with crisis. Besides, gold can be exchanged for money easily.”

Upon entering the Gold for Cash room, clients are photographed. Then, gold experts measure the weight and check the quality of gold with electronic equipment. it takes roughly 15 minutes for each piece of gold to be processed.

The gold is also photographed and kept in a safe so clients can be sure to get their own gold when they redeem it.

Mr Mongkon says about 50 clients pawn gold with the bank daily. In September, transactions totalled 130 million baht. the Gold for Cash service accounts for 10% of the bank’s portfolio.

Soontorn Hanchaowarakul, the bank’s assistant managing director for marketing and business development, says loans are available at up to 90% of the value of the gold pledged as collateral, up to 23,000 baht per one-baht weight (15.16 grammes) at present.

Interest terms are for three months and can be extended six times to 18 months altogether. After that, the contract may be renewed.

The service is available at the bank’s 16 existing branches, including ones in Chon Buri and Nakhon Pathom, with the rest in Bangkok and the outskirts.

“Customers come to us to pawn gold because they are confident that their gold will be kept safely with insurance coverage,” mr Soontorn said. “As well, if clients can no longer service the payment, the gold will be brought to auction and the client will get the extra amount if the gold raises more money than they got when they pawned the gold.”

Besides cash, Thai Credit also provides overdrafts for clients using gold as collateral to withdraw cash from ATMs. another service lets clients buy gold with a down payment.

Mr Mongkon said the Gold for Cash service targets the 24 million Thai people who are not in the tax system, 10 million of whom are low-income earners.

“These are people who are not treated well by large banks or have bad records with the Credit Bureau, partly from problems during the 1997 crisis,” he said.

“We are willing to give these people a chance to come back. We are not really concerned about who they were in the past. And so far, only 2% of the 4 billion baht extended as Gold for Cash loans has resulted in default.”

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We do a lot more at GamePro than just play games. This weekend, a few of us ran one of the toughest races on the planet. And we have the pictures to prove it.

Carrying a log, like a boss.

The website for Tough Mudder describes it as “probably the toughest event on the planet.” It’s normally an 11+ mile race through treacherous terrain filled with obstacles courses. to compete, you have to sign a death waiver.

And that’s exactly how I and several other GamePro staff decided to spend last weekend.

The Runners:

• Karen Chu — GamePro’s art director and Tough Mudder team captain
• Justin Haywald (me — miss Congeniality)
• Chris Holt — Senior Associate editor and team MVP
• Richard Chua — GamePro sales staff and team mascot
• Dave Rudden — form GamePro all-star

While it’s called a race, the event is more about teamwork and making it through to the end without getting seriously injured. While I didn’t see anyone die, plenty of people had to be carried away, were struck down by race-ending leg injuries, or just had hypothermia (two of the events involved jumping in icy cold water).

You can check out the course we ran here (though the map lies, we actually ran over 13 miles). Scaling 10-foot high walls, running through a field of live electrical wires, and scaling a mountain…that’s just a day in the life for us.

Karen and I brought along a couple of disposable water-proof cameras to document the event. Enjoy!

Team Venture! go!

The first event. what you can see are the rocks that completelly tore up our knees and elbows.

Not icy water, but cold enough that you want to avoid falling in. Justin succeeds…barely.

And this is the easy part.

Chris scales the Berlin wall like it ain’t no thang.

Richard climbing out of a pool full of ice water. his balls will follow later.

Balance beams across the pond, follwed by electrical wires, which you can see in the background.

This is the picture of the boot Camp Group from Tyrone Baptist Church and Tyrone United Methodist Church. In the front is the balance scales that were made for the mission challenge between boys and girls to raise money for local soldiers and their families. Courtesy photo

by Alta Rogers • Special to the Leader & Times Tyrone Baptist Church and the Tyrone United Methodist Church joined forces for Vacation Bible School from June 27 through July 1. the program was introduced as a Bible Boot Camp, where God was the Commander and Chief, Jesus the General and Pastors Gary Stone and Les Bussell the Chaplains. there were 62 Privates (preschool through 6th grade) enrolled, with an average daily attendance of 49. out of that number, 29 children had perfect attendance.  Twenty two adults and 10 youth volunteers helped to make this venture possible. the Bible School’s theme was the Armor of God found in Ephesians 6:11-18.  The daily focus was on verse 11:  “Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” Every day, a skit was performed by four of the youth leaders, which symbolized each piece of God’s Armor: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the Gospel, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit. On the first day, a challenge was launched between the girls and boys:  which gender could raise the most money to help the families of America’s deployed soldiers. After a struggle, the girls won. But both sides felt like winners when around $950 was donated to Mr. Ed Poley, executive director of the Whirlwind Career Counseling and Guidance Center located in Liberal. many prayers are being said that these children will now be Christian examples in their communities. And that the lessons they learned from Bible School will encourage them to attend Sunday school and church.

WHEN Supre revamped its website to capitalise on the popularity of online shopping, a suitable credit card payment gateway was required.

The company, one of Australia’s largest fashion retailers, first started an online store about a decade ago. In 2009, it identified the need for a new website to complement the brand, improve customer experience and to integrate into the back-end administration procedures.

To oversee the restructure of its website, it partnered with the Sydney-based digital design agency Amblique. Supre.com.au went live in November 2009.

"We were only doing very small sales on our existing website and running it out of one of our flagship stores," Supre international brand manager Catherine Taouk said.

"We realised the need to create a larger-scale site and wondered how we could possibly maximise and capitalise on the growth of online shopping."

Amblique advised the retailer to change to a payment gateway with more cost-effective prices once online sales increased to more than 650 transactions a day.

"With eWAY, the additional functionality, the ease of integration and cost competitiveness of the service was a key criteria for moving across to it," Amblique managing director Justus Wilde said.

"that has been pretty important to Supre because volumes have significantly increased."

Supre has 165 retail stores in Australia and New Zealand with a target market of 12 to 35-year-olds. it has several thousand staff, including retail and manufacturing, with 60 per cent of garments produced locally and the rest in China.

Supre’s online store allows the company to access customers globally, as well as where it has no shopfronts, such as in South-East Asia. The online store has a target market of 18 to 45-year-olds, with most sales coming from Australia and NZ followed by Singapore and Malaysia.

Amblique worked directly with eWAY to integrate its software into the website. The eWAY gateway ensures customer details are securely transmitted.

As eWAY’s technology is completely automated, all purchases and refunds are processed in real-time. The revamped website is not only more cohesive with the brand’s reputation of broad fashion ranges at affordable prices, but also easier to navigate.

The company can quickly and securely accept online purchases from around the world at any time. Customers are able to see quick turnaround from order, payment, distribution and postage, thus encouraging repeat purchases.

Ms Taouk said the development cost for the project was about $50,000, but there was ongoing work on the site. "eWAY’s cost structure for the site is a low flat-rate per transaction and a yearly access fee," she said.

Supre’s website sells about 40,000 to 45,000 garments a month. there are about 10,000 transactions each month. Compared to November 2009, Supre Online also received twice as many site visits in November last year.

Ms Taouk said in the next three years the company planned to at least quadruple transaction volume. Its current export total was 20 per cent and growing.

"We have forecasted, particularly with mobile commerce, to quadruple, even tenfold, the site," she said. "at this stage, it is a great opportunity for us to get into new markets."