Vietnam has officially joined five ASEAN countries in cross-payment communications between countries using QRIS.
Through this collaboration, it will facilitate transactions between all participating countries without having to exchange foreign currency. This collaboration includes payments based on QR codes, for example QRIS, fast payments such as BI-Fast to the Real-time gross settlement (RTGS) payment system.
This collaboration was marked by the signing of the MoU by Thanh Ha Pham, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank and also attended by Central Bank Governors from Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.
“Last year, at the G20 Bali, five ASEAN countries signed an MoU to connect their payment systems. Today it will be expanded, Vietnam is ready to join while other ASEAN countries will follow,” said Perry Warjiyo, Governor of Bank Indonesia (BI), on August 25, 2023.
Previously, the five countries that had already signed the cooperation were Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore.
Perry further said that Brunei Darussalam had expressed interest in joining and would follow soon, and was scheduled for the end of the year.
Meanwhile, it will later expand this cross-border payment cooperation outside ASEAN, such as China, India, Japan and South Korea.
Bilateral cooperation between banks
Previously, several Central Banks from ASEAN, such as BI, Bank Negara Malaysia, Central Bank ng Pilipinas, Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Bank of Thailand, have agreed to cooperate in supporting faster, cheaper, transparent and inclusive payment system.
The banks in Thailand that have integrated QRIS in their system are Bank CIMB Thailand, Bank of Ayudhya, Krung Thai Bank, Kasikorn Bank, and Siam Commercial Bank.
Meanwhile in Malaysia, Public Bank Berhad, Razer Merchant Services Sdn Bhd, United Overseas Bank Berhad, TNG Digital Sdn Bhd, Axiata Digital eCode Sdn Bhd (Boost), AmBank Malaysia Berhad, Maybank Berhad and Hong Leong Bank Berhad.
Meanwhile, using QRIS for currency conversion for payments is done automatically. However, it is not known whether the exchange rate conversion was based on real-time rate, based on an agreed rate between respective countries, rate provided by banks, or the average conversion rate at a certain time.
