Across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Thailand is leading the transition towards cashless and digital payments both domestically and across borders, driven by real-time payment infrastructure, e-money growth, and cross-border payment linkages, a new report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says. However, this shift is also introducing new risks and challenges.
Between 2019 and 2024, the use of non-physical payments increased annually by more than 75% on average. This surge has been fueled largely by PromptPay, Thailand’s real-time digital payment system.
Launched in 2016, PromptPay links bank accounts to national identification (ID) or mobile phone numbers, offering a universal, low-cost platform for multiple use cases, including request to pay, merchant payments, cross-bank bill payments, bulk/batch payments, and e-donations.
During 2019 to 2024, the average number of fast payment transactions through PromptPay rose more than eight-fold from below 40 per person per year to almost 350. Today, registration to PromptPay exceeds over 90 million against a population of about 71 million, and the system processes more than 74 million every day, according to The Nation.
Thailand is also seeing high penetration of e-money account. Today, nearly half of the adult population owns an e-money account, outperforming its regional peers where only about 20% of ASEAN consumers have an e-money account.
This significant progress in digital payments has been a catalyst for financial inclusion. In 2024, about 80% of adults in Thailand owned financial accounts, 55% owned a debit card, and 50% had made digital payments. The country now has more registered mobile banking accounts at 107.24 million than people, according to The Nation.
In response to the shift to cashless payments, Thai merchants are embracing digital payments at a fast pace. A 2022 survey by the Bank of Thailand (BOT) found that 96% of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) had adopted digital payments, which accounted for over two-thirds of their payment value.
Cross-border payment linkages
Across ASEAN, Thailand is also leading progress in establishing bilateral and multilateral cross-border fast payment linkages with its regional counterparts.
Thailand was one of the first movers in linking digital payments across borders, establishing in 2018 its first QR payment linkage with Japan, and later with eight other economies. This type of linkage is the most common in Southeast Asia, and allows travelers to make real-time payments to merchants in other countries by scanning a QR code.
In April 2021, Thailand established the first cross-border fund transfer connectivity with Singapore. This type of linkage aims to facilitate instant remittances and fund transfers across borders between individuals by using simple identifiers like a mobile phone number or a national identification.
The IMF report notes that while QR cross-border payments in Southeast Asia are still small in value and volume, they have shown a significant surge in growth. In Thailand, inbound payments through all bilateral QR linkages stood at approximately THB 2.5 billion (US$79 million) in 2024. This represents a fivefold increase from THB 500 million (US$15.8 million) in 2023.
Growth potential remains nevertheless substantial, particularly given rising intra-ASEAN tourism. In 2023, intra-ASEAN tourists accounted for 42% of total visitors, up from 36% in 2019.
Fragmentation issues
However, multiple linkages in current bilateral cross-border payment arrangements are leading in a highly fragmented landscape, making interoperability between systems and jurisdictions difficult to achieve. Project Nexus, a collaboration between the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub and central banks from Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and India, aims to address that through a multilateral approach.
Project Nexus employs a standardized blueprint to connect multiple domestic fast payment systems through a single, central hub. This significantly simplifies the infrastructure required for regional and global payment connections.
The initiative completed a successful proof of concept in 2022 and a comprehensive blueprint in July 2024. Nexus is already being incorporated in Singapore, marking a key step towards operationalization. The scheme is expected to go-live in the city state by 2027.
Financial crime on the rise
In addition to technological challenges, increased reliance on digital platforms is also heightening risks of financial crime and money laundering.
Just this week, the Thai Digital Asset Operators Trade Association (TDO) said that more the 10,000 suspicious accounts had been frozen as the industry intensified efforts to combat money laundering through mule accounts. This initiative follows a series of arrests conducted in late-2025 involving hundreds of suspects, recruiters, and ringleaders linked to mule-account networks.
These actions are part of a nationwide effort to curb financial crime amid surging online scam activity. Between November 01, 2023, and June 27, 2025, Thailand’s Anti Online Scam Operation Centre (AOC) received more than 1.18 million cases of online scams.
This trend is accelerating in 2026. According to police, authorities logged 7,682 complaints of online scams from March 01 to 07, 2026 alone, up 4% from the 7,344 complaints the prior week. These scams caused THB 433.86 million (US$14 million) in damages.
Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on image by coffeemill and via user21016237 Freepik
