People walk past the State Bank building, near the offices of Vietcombank and Vietnam Investment and Development Bank, in downtown Hanoi, Vietnam November 23, 2017. REUTERS/Kham Purchase license rights
JAKARTA, Aug 25 (Reuters) – Vietnam’s central bank signed an agreement on Friday to be part of an initiative by five other Southeast Asian countries to set up cross-border payment mechanisms among themselves.
Vietnam will join Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore in working to connect each of their payment systems, including the use of the QR (quick response) code system for retail transactions.
The agreement was reached at a meeting of the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) finance ministers and central bank governors in Jakarta.
In addition, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have agreed to subsequently facilitate cross-border transactions in financial assets such as stocks and government bonds in local currencies.
“We are not only facilitating trade and investment, but also our resilience to global exchange rate uncertainty, from the Federal Reserve,” Bank Indonesia Governor Perry Warjiyo told a news conference.
Indonesia has already connected its QR code payment system with Thailand and Malaysia and aims to connect with Singapore later this year.
ASEAN, a bloc of more than 600 million people, has faced years of delays in its efforts to integrate its economies, worth a combined $2.3 trillion, through trade, investment and the connectivity of the markets and harmonized customs rules and procedures.
Reporting by Stefanno Sulaiman; Edited by Martin Petty.
Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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