THE State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has officially joined the regional payment connectivity (RPC) initiative, whose participants include the central banks of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.

The RPC initiative was established at the G20 Leaders’ Summit in 2022 to boost payment connectivity across Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean) countries by making cross-border payments faster and cheaper, as well as more inclusive and transparent.

Expanding payment connectivity will help support regional economic activities after the pandemic, including tourism and other service industries. It will also boost trade and remittances among the Asean members, while benefiting small and medium enterprises, said the six central banks in a joint statement on Friday (Aug 25).

They are the SBV, Bank Indonesia, Bank Negara Malaysia, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Bank of Thailand. The six have a mandate to include other Asean members in the RPC initiative from the ninth finance ministers’ and central bank governors’ meeting. The initiative may also be expanded to neighbouring economies and countries beyond Asean.

The central banks have been progressively working on connecting their cross-border payment systems via options such as QR (quick response) codes and fast-payment, allowing their residents to make payments in each other’s countries using local currencies with ease.

In March this year, MAS and Bank Negara launched a cross-border QR code payment linkage between Singapore and Malaysia, allowing customers of participating financial institutions to make payments by scanning Nets or DuitNow QR codes.

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In August last year, Nets and its Thai counterpart National ITMX expanded their cross-border QR payment collaboration. This allowed Singapore travellers to use banking apps like DBS PayLah! and OCBC Pay Anyone to pay with Thailand’s national PromptPay QR. Likewise, Thai travellers are able to scan and pay with Nets QR on their banking apps.

By the end of this year, residents in Indonesia will be able to scan Nets QR codes in Singapore, and Singapore travellers to Indonesia will also be able to make payments from their Nets-linked bank accounts.