PromptPay transactions surge to more than 7.5 million
As revealed by the Thai Bankers’ Association (TBA), the number of PromptPay transactions has reached a total of 7.5 million, valued at Bt48 billion.
These transactions were conducted by around 28.3 million individuals and 30,000 juristic persons. In the second half of 2017, the TBA will launch two new services. One will allow merchants to collect payments and customers to make them via PromptPay, and the other will facilitate businesses’ payment-collection processes.
Registered users at the end of this year are expected to number 30 million individual and business customers.
TBA chairman Predee Daochai said the TBA and 21 banks, in advancing the National e-Payment Master Plan, implemented the PromptPay service on January 27 as an online funds-transfer channel for individual customers, and extended the coverage to business customers on March 1.
Service use increased continually to an accumulated transaction value of Bt48 billion as of May 21, via 7.5 million transactions, according to Bank of Thailand data. The highest daily transaction record was approximately 100,000 items.
Predee said that after the PromptPay service was introduced in Thailand less than four months ago, its transaction volume increased substantially, to exceed that found in some European countries’ similar systems after as much as two years.
There have been no complaints from users thus far regarding security or errors of the PromptPay system. The TBA therefore believes that users have growing confidence in the PromptPay service, and hopes that it will become a hybrid between a service and basic infrastructure that enables consumers, businesses and government agencies to conduct financial transactions, including money transfers, more conveniently in the future.
With the two new services, PromptPay is expected to become even more popular. This will not only help induce users to use less cash, but also cut Thailand’s overall cash-management costs and support the transition towards a digital economy, the system’s supporters believe.
As of mid-May, registration for PromptPay by juristic persons and individuals was recorded at 30,000 and 28.3 million transactions respectively.
