THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
nationthailand

Digital payments soar 104% as Thais go cashless during Covid

Digital payments soar 104% as Thais go cashless during Covid

Real-time payments surged 104 per cent to more than 5.24 billion in 2020 as cash use in Thailand plummeted during the Covid-19 crisis last year, new research shows.

The “Prime-Time for Real-Time” study placed Thailand fourth in the global rankings. It projects digital payments of 32.01 per cent in Kingdom from 2020 to 2025, far higher than the 23.6 per cent projected globally.

Digital payments soar 104% as Thais go cashless during Covid

The phenomenal growth of real-time payments in Thailand is being driven by the Bank of Thailand’s national e-payment system, PromptPay, said the study’s authors, ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ: ACIW) and GlobalData.

Meanwhile mobile wallet adoption rose to an historic high in Thailand of 83.9 per cent in 2020, up from 72.6 per cent in 2019.

Digital payments soar 104% as Thais go cashless during Covid

ACI Worldwide said Covid-19 had condensed a decade of development on digital payments into one year, creating a new normal that would not reverse after the crisis.

“Countries with a robust digital payments infrastructure already in place have coped better than those without when it comes to containing the economic impact of the pandemic,” said Jeremy Wilmot, chief product officer of ACI Worldwide.

Digital payments soar 104% as Thais go cashless during Covid

It projects Thailand real-time payments to grow to 21 billion by 2025.

India topped the 2020 rankings for real-time payments with 25.5 billion, followed by China with 15.7 billion transactions, South Korea (6 billion), Thailand (5.2 billion and UK (2.8 billion).

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