PromptPay to be new refund channel for unused mobile phone balances
THE BANK of Thailand in cooperation with the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) plans to authorise the use of e-wallets and PromptPay as additional channels for the reimbursement of unused prepaid value to customers who have terminated their mobile-phone service.
NBTC secretary-general Thakorn Tanthasathit said this would ensure that customers received their money within 30 days after contacting the mobile-phone service providers. At present, the telecom companies refund unused prepaid balances via cheque or by money transfers to the customers’ bank accounts or their new SIM cards if they have switched to a different service provider.
BOT Governor Dr Veerathai Santiprabhob said person-to-person PromptPay service would officially go into effect next quarter, as all of the banks have said their systems would be able to accommodate the new money-transfer service.
He said 19 million mobile-phone numbers had registered with PromptPay, adding that the first phase of the system – money transfers from the government to people – was going smoothly.
He said the overall unused balance of prepaid mobile-phone users who had terminated their service was around Bt100 million.
There are 90 million prepaid mobile-phone users.
The NBTC is considering regulatory amendments on how monies from unused prepaid balances could be utilised if customers do not request reimbursement. However, public hearings would be necessary before such amendments could be implemented.
Veerathai said consumer protection for digital banking would be a crucial task for the BOT in 2017, and it had set up a new department – Financial Consumer Protection and Market Conduct – for this purpose.
The BOT and NBTC have agreed |to upgrade consumer protection for mobile banking. The banks and |mobile operators must set up a mechanism for the sharing of customer data, using only phone numbers and not |customers’ names or bank-account |numbers.
The information exchange will be completed by the first quarter of the new year, the governor said.
