Bt100 million budget for e-payment system
NATIONAL ITMX will allocate a budget of around Bt100 million to provide an interface for banks so they can access and manage information as part of preparation for a national e-payment system.
Piti Tantakasem, chief wholesale banking officer at TMB Bank and also a director at ITMX, said the latter would use its existing capital, provided by commercial banks that are shareholders in the firm, to run the payment gateway.
The company has hired VocaLink, a global payment service based in Britain, to help it develop the payment-gateway system under a five-year contract. ITMX will share fee revenue with VocaLink from actual transactions after the system is implemented, he said.
“Hiring this expert will help ITMX provide fast service to all parties. Moreover, ITMX will get know-how from the global company, as we have to ensure that during the development of the payment-switching system, money from transactions will not be lost,” Piti said.
The Bank of Thailand will be the coordinator of the system with the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission and the Interior Ministry, as they will synchronise mobile-phone numbers and personal identity cards.
Money transfers from August
Payment-settlement risk could be a worry if non-banks want to access the system.
Banks that ask finance companies to join the system will have to be their guarantors, he said.
Piti said money transfers authorised by mobile-phone or ID numbers would be implemented in August, including welfare e-payments from the state to elderly people or farmers.
The Thai Bankers’ Association has hired PricewaterhouseCoopers to study the costs of the system in order to establish a fee structure.
Piti said PwC would base its study on three types of transactions in the banking system.
The first is manual transactions at the front end of banks, such as deposits, withdrawals or interbank chequing services. These have high costs but the banks do not charge their customers fees.
The second type is semi-manual transactions, such as cash deposits and withdrawals at automated teller machines.
Even though the banks charge fees for these services, the back-office cost is high because of the expense of ATM installation, rental fees, cash transport and security.
The last transaction is electronic payments, for which the cost is low but fees are high.
Banks’ costs will significantly decline if they start charging fees for the first type of transactions and waive fees for electronic transactions, Piti said.
