Thailand to expand PromptPay system to CLMV group

BANGKOK, October 1 (TNA) - The Thai government, through the Ministry of Finance, plans to expand its PromptPay online transaction system to neighboring Lao PDR, Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam in the ASEAN Community (AC), known as the CLMV group, where there have been a large number of nationals working in Thailand as migrant workers. Finance Minister Apisak Tantivorawong told journalists on Monday that the plan was discussed at a meeting of an official panel in charge of developing the connectivity of the Thai financial and capital markets with those of the CLMV group, held in Bangkok earlier in the day and chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak, who oversees economic affairs. Apisak said that the plan is aimed to promote and support the online remittance of money from migrant workers in Thailand to bank accounts of their families' members in the CLMV group through the PromptPay system installed on their smart phones, with a very low fee or even free of charges during promotional campaigns provided by financial institutes in the Thai economy. Apisak stated that under the plan, the "QR Code Standard" will be developed as a central QR code system to be specially utilized for the purpose to facilitate the CLMV migrant workers. According to the minister, the Bank of Thailand (BOT) is discussing the cooperation on the plan with the central banks of the CLMV group in order to jointly launch necessary financial connectivity facilitations for the plan. So far, the minister revealed, CLMV migrant workers in Thailand need to pay up to a 10 per cent fee, out of any total amount, whenever they transfer their money back to their families. The minister noted, meanwhile, that the Thai government is also considering to promote the online remittance service from the Thai baht to other local currencies in the CLMV group to not only cut the transaction cost, but also help strengthen the national economies of the CLMV group in the long run, after such the initiative has already been launched on the trial basis between the Thai and the Chinese currencies for the Sino-Thai trade. (TNA)