Heaptalk, Jakarta — Bank Indonesia (BI) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates (CBUAE) regarding the implementation of local currency in cross-border payments using the Quick Response Code Indonesian Standard (QRIS) payment scheme with the United Arab Emirates.
The Governor of Bank Indonesia, Perry Warjiyo, conveyed during the BIRAMA agenda in the BI office, “Besides expanding QRIS utilization in ASEAN countries, we have signed the MoU with the UAE, expecting to facilitate society in using the QRIS payment when visited to Dubai or performed Hajj and Umrah,”
He added that BI continues strengthening and expanding cooperation with central banks from Indonesia’s main partner countries in formulating the monetary and macroprudential policy mix, payment system cooperation, Local Currency Transaction (LCT), and BSA.
He explained that the Structured Bilateral Cooperation (SBC) and MoU signing had been closely established with central banks in several countries, including Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Japan, China, South Korea, the United States, and India, and would continue to be expanded in other countries.
However, regarding the QRIS adoption, he conveyed, “Implementation of QRIS BI Fast would continue to be expanded. Apart from broadening the payment method in the four countries of ASEAN, we will also address another market, spanning China, Japan, and India in 2024, which are currently under discussion.”
Aligned with Perry, the Head of the Communications Department at Bank Indonesia, Erwin Haryono, admitted that BI’s party determined to broaden the QRIS adoption in the United Arab Emirates as this country possessed Indonesian Migrant Workers (PMI). For this reason, QRIS usage in the UAE market is forecasted to simplify the digital transaction payment. Moreover, he revealed that this oil producer country also claimed to own a prepared system forwardness to utilize QRIS as a digital payment scheme.
Previously, Bank Indonesia (BI) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) inaugurated the implementation of QR payment interconnection between Indonesia and Singapore as of November 2023, following the country’s collaboration accomplishment with the Bank of Thailand (BoT), and Central Bank of Malaysia.
The local currency in bilateral transactions via QRIS is expected to boost economic activities from diverse sectors, specifically for the tourism industry. According to BI, the QRIS transaction volume growth has attained 1.596 billion transactions as of October 2023, followed by nominal QRIS transactions increasing by 186.08% YoY worth US$1.60 billion, equivalent to Rp24.97 trillion.
Regarding the QRIS users, this central bank of the archipelago also claimed significant growth, reaching 43.44 million people. Based on the data, the number of QRIS merchants also attained 29.63 million users, with the most dominant merchants coming from Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
