Bank of Thailand Calls for Data-Sharing Framework to Unlock Financial Inclusion

 

 

Thailand's central bank says fragmented data is leaving digitally active citizens financially invisible — and is building open finance rails to fix it.

 

 

Thailand must build a regulated data-sharing infrastructure to translate its world-leading digital payments adoption into genuine financial inclusion, a senior Bank of Thailand official said on Tuesday.

 

Daranee Saeju, assistant governor heading the Strategy and Special Projects Group, delivered the address at Money 20/20 Asia 2026 in Bangkok, framing the country's next financial frontier not as payments or identity – both already well established – but as the data layer that sits above them.

 

Speaking under the theme From Infrastructure to Impact: Advancing Human-Centred Financial Innovation, she opened her remarks with the story of Mali, a durian farmer in Chantaburi Province who accepts digital payments via PromptPay, holds a verified national digital identity, and receives government Covid-19 subsidies seamlessly through a linked bank account. 

 

By every conventional measure, Mali is part of the digital economy. Yet when she sought a loan to install a smart irrigation system, her bank treated her as a complete unknown.

 

"She has identity, she has payment, but she lacks something very critical — a portable proof of her digital activities," Daranee said. "She is invisible financially."
 

 

 

 

 

A three-layer digital public infrastructure

Daranee outlined what she described as the three foundational layers of a modern digital economy: identity, payments, and data. Thailand, she argued, has firmly established the first two.

 

The National Digital ID platform now has more than 30 million users, allowing citizens in remote areas to open bank accounts or investment portfolios from home. 

 

PromptPay, the country's real-time payment system, has reached 92 million registered accounts and recently recorded a single-day peak of 96 million transactions — a tenfold increase since 2019. 

 

With a population of 65 million, Thailand now processes roughly 80 million transactions daily and ranks among global leaders in digital payment adoption, at more than 700 transactions per person per year.

 

"We can confidently say we have digital identity; we have digital payments," she said. "And now we must push further to unlock the full potential of the third layer — data sharing."
 

 

 

 

Data islands and the twin gaps

The core problem, she said, is that data generated by individuals and businesses remains fragmented across institutions — what she called "data islands."

 

Banks see transaction records, telecoms see behavioural data, e-commerce platforms see trade activity, but no single institution sees the full picture.
 

 

 

 

 

This fragmentation creates two distinct problems. 

 

First, an inclusion gap: financially active people like Mali remain invisible to lenders not because they lack a financial footprint, but because that footprint is not portable. 

 

Second, a safety gap: siloed data leaves the financial system exposed to AI-driven fraud because patterns that would reveal criminal activity cannot be detected when information cannot flow between institutions.

 

"Much like a physical highway requires both roads to connect places and traffic rules to protect people, a data highway requires infrastructure and governance," Daranee said.

 

 

 

Open finance initiatives under way

The Bank of Thailand is responding with two initiatives. Under the "Your Data" programme, the central bank is establishing national standards for a consent-based data ecosystem, giving citizens what Daranee described as "a digital remote control" over their own data. 

 

Under its digital loan document initiative, borrowers can use verified transaction histories as financial credentials, replacing paper documentation and enabling banks to approve loans in minutes.

 

"Data belongs to the people," she said. "Individuals and businesses should be able to access, control, and share their own data to wherever it creates value for them."

 

 

 

 

A shared agenda

Daranee called on financial institutions to treat data sharing as a commercial opportunity rather than a compliance obligation, urged technology providers to build interoperable systems centred on user consent, and asked data holders across agriculture, telecoms, and e-commerce to facilitate responsible data use.

 

She closed by linking the initiative to a broader global conversation, noting that the IMF–World Bank Annual Meetings are due to be held in Bangkok in October, with a focus on advancing safe and inclusive digital finance.

 

"Our goal is not just to digitise finance, but to humanise it," she said. "Because behind every data set is a person — someone whose potential depends very much on whether we get this right."