Thailand gears up for cashless society with launch of PromptPay

It will go live in mid-July.

Thailand has gone one step further in its pursuit of becoming less reliant on cash. PromptPay, a new money transfer service which was jointly developed by 15 commercial banks and 4 specialized financial institutions, will start operations from July 15, the Thai Bankers’ Association (TBA) said in a statement.

PromptPay requires transferees to link their national ID or mobile phone number to their accounts, which will provide greater security for users and eradicate the trouble of remembering account numbers.

Only deposit account holders and phone number owners can register for the PromptPay service. Eligible accounts include savings or current accounts with a single owner.

One registered PromptPay account can be linked to four sets of numbers—one ID and three mobile phone numbers. These numbers must not be linked with any other account.

Banks will accept registrations via a number of channels, which vary according to each bank’s readiness. Some banks will begin pre-registration between July 1 and 14, 2016. On July 15, all banks across the country will officially launch the PromptPay registration service, without a closing date.

The fees for PromptPay transactions are as follows: transactions under 5,000 Baht will be exempt from any fee, while sums of 5,000-30,000 Baht will be charged up to 2 Baht per transaction. Transactions from 30,000-100,000 Baht will be charged up to 5 Baht per transaction. For transfers of more than 100,000 Baht, customers will be charged no more than 10 Baht.

At the end of October, the service will be ready to handle public transactions before moving on to other transfers such as bill payments.

PromptPay was developed in collaboration between the TBA and 4 specialized financial institutions, namely Government Savings Bank, Government Housing Bank, Islamic Bank of Thailand and Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Co-operatives.