PromptPay-LaoQR

Overview

The PromptPay–LaoQR linkage is a two-way cross-border interlink between Thailand's national instant-payment QR (PromptPay / Thai QR, switched by National ITMX) and the Lao PDR's national QR standard (LAO QR / LaoQR, switched by the Lao National Payment Network, LAPNet). It lets users of participating banks in each country scan the other country's merchant QR code from their home mobile-banking app, with the FX leg handled bilaterally ¹². It is the sixth ASEAN cross-border linkage for the Bank of Thailand and is delivered under the ASEAN Payment Connectivity initiative ¹. See national context in ../countries/TH-thailand.md and ../countries/LA-laos.md, and the regional framework in ASEAN RPC.

History

The linkage was developed under the joint stewardship of the Bank of Thailand (BOT) and the Bank of the Lao PDR (BOL), and announced on 3 April 2024 at the 11th ASEAN Finance Ministers' and Central Bank Governors' Meeting in Luang Prabang ¹. It rolled out in two directional phases:

• Phase 1 (from 3 April 2024): Lao PDR users can scan Thai PromptPay QR codes displayed by merchants in Thailand, using participating Lao banks' mobile apps ¹².
• Phase 2 (end of June 2024): Thai users can scan LAO QR codes displayed by merchants in the Lao PDR, using participating Thai banks' mobile apps ¹².

The Lao PDR became the sixth country to which BOT linked its instant-retail-payment system, after Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam ¹. The link sits within a wider LaoQR cross-border push that also connected Laos with Vietnam, Cambodia and China UnionPay ../countries/LA-laos.md.

Technical specification

• Acceptance model. Two EMVCo-aligned merchant-presented QR schemes are coupled: a payer's home app recognises the counterpart country's QR payload and processes it cross-border, rather than requiring a separate code at the merchant ¹. LaoQR is an EMVCo-aligned national specification interoperable across LAPNet members ../countries/LA-laos.md.
• Operators / switches. National ITMX (Thailand) and LAPNet (Lao PDR) operate the domestic rails being interlinked ¹.
• Settlement banks. Kasikornbank (KBank) on the Thai side and Banque Pour Le Commerce Extérieur Lao (BCEL) on the Lao side act as settlement banks for the corridor ¹. BCEL is the designated settlement bank for the Thailand corridor on the Lao side ../countries/LA-laos.md.
• FX / local currency. The linkage promotes settlement in the participants' local currencies (THB / LAK) under the ASEAN Payment Connectivity local-currency-usage objective ¹.

Use cases

The dominant use case is tourist and cross-border traveller retail payments between two economies with heavy mutual travel — roughly 2 million cross-border travellers between the two nations in 2023 — letting visitors pay merchants by QR from their home app instead of carrying cash or exchanging currency ¹. On the Lao side the cross-border QR programme is closely tied to tourism initiatives such as Visit Laos Year 2024 ../countries/LA-laos.md.

Implementations

At launch the linkage involved a small set of banks on each side, expected to grow ¹:

• Thailand (Phase 1 acquirers / Phase 2 issuers): Bangkok Bank and Bank of Ayudhya (Krungsri) among the initial participants ¹. Krungsri publicly launched QR payment services for Thai tourists travelling to Laos ³.
• Lao PDR: six commercial banks at launch, including ACLEDA Bank Lao, Agricultural Promotion Bank (APB), BCEL, Joint Development Bank (JDB), Lao-Viet Bank and ST Bank ¹.

On the Lao consumer side, BCEL One and the EZyKip tourist app are the main LaoQR-capable apps ../countries/LA-laos.md.

Comparison

• vs ASEAN RPC: This is one bilateral edge within the multilateral ASEAN Regional Payment Connectivity framework; RPC is the umbrella of QR and fast-payment links among ASEAN central banks, and this corridor is BOT's sixth such link ¹.
• vs DuitNow-QRIS: Both are two-way EMVCo-QR linkages under ASEAN Payment Connectivity with named settlement banks and local-currency settlement; PromptPay–LaoQR is distinguished by an explicit phased directional rollout (Lao→Thai first, Thai→Lao second) versus the simultaneous two-way commercial launch of DuitNow–QRIS ¹².
• PromptPay itself is one of Asia's largest instant-payment systems, with tens of millions of registrations and very high daily volumes domestically ../countries/TH-thailand.md, giving the Thai side a large acceptance base for the corridor.

Status

Live in both directions since mid-2024 (Phase 1 from April 2024; Phase 2 from end-June 2024) ¹². The corridor is part of Thailand's broader, fast-growing cross-border QR network and Laos's expanding set of QR links (Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, China) ../countries/TH-thailand.md, ../countries/LA-laos.md. Granular corridor-specific transaction figures were not published in the launch materials reviewed.

Sources

1 Joint Press Release: Launch of the Cross-border QR Payment Linkage between Thailand and the Lao PDR — Bank of Thailand, 2024 2 Thailand, Laos Launch Cross-border QR Payment Link — Regulation Asia, 2024 3 Krungsri's QR payment services for Thai tourists to Laos kicks off — The Nation Thailand, 2024

Deployments

Found in the following country reports (grep across reports/countries/):

• TH — TH-thailand.md

Regions / aggregations not mapped to a single country

• Thailand–Laos