Jakarta. Chief Economic Affairs Minister Airlangga Hartarto said Friday that Indonesia remained open to foreign operators as the US slammed Jakarta’s payment systems, including the so-called QRIS barcode system, as a service barrier.

Indonesian goods will face a 32 percent import tax when they enter the American market starting early July. Early this month, US President Donald Trump decided to slap such steep tariffs to fix the bilateral trade imbalance. The initial baseline tariff of 10 percent is already in effect.

To justify the now-paused 32 percent import tax, the Trump administration gave Indonesia a list of what their businesses had long been concerned about. For instance, they complained about Indonesia’s QRIS and the National Payment Gateway (NPG), fearing that such systems could affect the American financial companies in the country. At present, US financial giants such as Visa and Mastercard are available in Indonesia.

As Indonesia pushes forward with tariff negotiations, all eyes are on the government on how it would respond to Washington's QRIS-NPG complaints. Airlangga, who helmed Indonesia’s negotiating team, said that Indonesia did not mean to lock American payment firms out of the system. 

“Regarding QRIS and NPG, Indonesia is open to foreign operators, including MasterCard and Visa,” Airlangga told reporters in a teleconference with the press.

"There are also no changes in the credit card sector. In the gateway sector, they [the US] are open to taking part in the front-end, and even participating within the system. We will provide a level playing field,” Airlangga said.

QRIS, short for Quick Response Code Indonesia Standard, lets users pay simply by scanning a barcode using their mobile phones. Bank Indonesia reported that the transaction volume for QRIS had soared 169.1 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025. A report by the US Trade Representative (USTR) claimed that Jakarta did not inform international stakeholders of these changes during the QRIS policymaking process. 

The NPG connects various electronic payment systems, letting people carry out non-cash transactions from any bank or channel in the country. Indonesia requires all domestic transactions to be processed via NPG. 

Over the past years, Bank Indonesia has issued some regulations regarding the NPG -- something that the USTR pointed out in its report. 

The central bank requires foreign firms to form partnership agreements with licensed Indonesian NPG switches to be able to process domestic retail transactions through the NPG. The agreements must earn Bank Indonesia’s approval, which is contingent on how supportive the foreign partner is of the development of the domestic industry, including through tech transfer. 

The USTR report underlined Bank Indonesia’s rule that requires government credit cards to be processed through NPG. American payment companies feared that this could limit access to US payment options, the trade agency said.

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