Krungsri (Bank of Ayudhya PCL) has joined forces to drive the innovation of a cross-border QR payment linkage between Thailand and Indonesia to make international fund transfer simple, convenient, and secure with special exchange rate. The service is set to be launched via Krungsri Mobile Application (KMA) in September 2021. Once COVID-19 situation improves and international travel is allowed to resume, Krungsri is ready to promote the service to be broadly used in order to enhance Thai and Indonesian customers' experiences in cross-border transactions and to emphasize Krungsri's Medium-Term Business Plan (MTBP) covering 2021 - 2023.
Ms. Yingluk Kongkasai, Krungsri Executive Vice President, Head of Transaction Banking Group revealed that "Cross-border QR payment service is a part of the collaboration on ASEAN Payment Connectivity initiated by the Bank of Thailand (BOT) and other ASEAN central banks for the purpose of promoting the ASEAN financial integration. Moreover, the service also aligns with the Bank's strategic direction of ASEAN expansion under the MTBP. Krungsri has exercised its expertise at hand to facilitate the customers in international transactions enhancement, which will meet the customers' current financial demands. Thai customers can use Krungsri Mobile Application (KMA) to scan the merchants' QR Code in order to make real-time payments for the products and services in Indonesia. The customers can view the payment amount in Thai Baht currency and instantly know the exchange rate which is better than the rate for the payments made by credit card. At the same time, the Bank's customers in Indonesia can use the mobile application participating in providing the service to scan for making payments for products and services in Thailand as well. This will result in the cross-border transactions which are easier, more convenient, quicker and more secure at a better exchange rate."
However, due to the situation of COVID-19 in which international travel is not allowed, the cross-border QR payment service will mainly be the answer of the group of Thai customers who work in Indonesia and Indonesian customers who work or live in Thailand. After the situation of COVID-19 gets better, Krungsri is confident that such service will meet the demand of more individual customers especially the tourists travelling between Thailand and Indonesia and Krungsri is ready to drive the service to be broadly used.
"In addition to the cross-border QR payment linkage between Thailand and Indonesia which its main target group is individual customers, Krungsri has been speeding up its work on developing cooperation in international transactions through its alliance banks in MUFG network in order to improve the standard of international trade between Thailand and Indonesia for the entrepreneurs. It is expected that the service will be officially launched in the fourth quarter of 2021."
Krungsri has been previously successful in being the leader of Thailand-Japan cross-border transactions service which has attributed to Thai customers' good experience in making payment via Mobile Application by means of QR Code scanning. This service is expected to be continuously expanded to other countries.