Jakarta. The ASEAN Business Advisory Council, or ASEAN BAC, is planning to work on integrating their respective countries' QR code payment systems, according to the grouping's 2023 chair Indonesia.

The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) this year is chairing the ASEAN BAC — the business forum of the Southeast Asian bloc. Kadin chairman Arsjad Rasjid said Indonesia would come up with some "legacies" when it helms the Southeast Asian business forum. One of these legacies is the regional QR Code payment linkage.

"For digitalization, we will bring what is called the ASEAN QR Code. So member states in ASEAN will share [QR code system] with one another," Arsjad told reporters at the ASEAN-BAC chairmanship handover ceremony in Jakarta on Monday.

"We are working together with the central banks of all member countries. For Indonesia, we will partner with Bank Indonesia," Arsjad said.

The linkage is set to give a push for ASEAN's goal of establishing regional payment integration by 2025. At the G20 forum in Bali, the central banks of five ASEAN member states —Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Singapore— inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on integrating their respective QR code payments. Linking QR codes would also mean bypassing the need for US dollars as an intermediary.

Indonesia and Thailand in 2021 had already launched a pilot for cross-border payment linkage. Users from Thailand are able to scan Indonesia’s QR code, also known as QRIS, to make payments to merchants across the archipelago, and vice versa. The service is also available to pay for cross-border e-commerce transactions, according to Bank Indonesia.

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The regional payment linkage is expected to benefit micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), which the ASEAN BAC chair Indonesia is putting emphasis on this year. 

Aside from the QR code integration, Indonesia plans to make an ASEAN peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform and an “Entrepreneurship Wiki” as part of its chairmanship legacies. Arsjad said the Entrepreneurship Wiki would serve as an online platform that could support the interconnectivity of MSMEs in ASEAN. The wiki will also help facilitate trade for Southeast Asian MSMEs.

"All of our ASEAN BAC legacies revolve around how we can support MSMEs. [...] MSMEs are indeed at the heart of the ASEAN economy," Arsjad said.

More Indonesians are going cashless. Indonesia Payment System Association (ASPI) reported that QRIS recorded 674.5 million transactions worth Rp 63.33 trillion in Jan-Sep 2022, marking a 137.8 percent in volume compared to the same period in the previous year. The value of the QRIS transaction also rose 319.8 percent from 2021 figures, ASPI revealed.

Indonesia picked up the 2023 ASEAN BAC baton from Cambodia.