The Bank of Thailand (BoT) has said it would expand QR cross-border payment to three Asean countries – Singapore, Myanmar and Cambodia – and the service was expected to begin in the middle of this year, said BoT assistant governor for payment systems policy and financial technology Siritida Panomwon na Ayudhya.

Each local bank has developed regional interoperability for standardised QR code payment that can be used in different countries under the sponsoring bank and switching-to-switching systems.

Some financial institutions have already developed and opened their services in a foreign country, such as Thanachart Bank, which opened its digital payment service in Laos last year. Krungsri Bank provided QR payment in Japan last year and Krungthai Bank jointly developed a cross-border payment system with Singapore.

The development of the payment system is a collaboration between central banks, financial institutions and payment service providers in the Asean region.

Meanwhile, under the National e-Payment roadmap of Thailand, this year will mainly focus on payments and international transactions.

As for the statistics on information technology system failures in the fourth quarter of last year, it was found that the number of online payment system crashes had increased to 17 times compared with 12 times in the third quarter, but the service provider needed less time to solve problems and provide continuous banking services.

THE NATION (THAILAND)/ANN