QR Payment App Users to Grow by 78% in Southeast Asia

SINGAPORE, (October 24, 2023) – In a study carried out by UnaFinancial across Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, as at July 2023, the number of people using QR payment apps had reached 997,000. They further predict that this may rise further to reach 1.77 million by 2025. The main reason for this upward trend may be due to the introduction of cross-border QR payments between these three nations.

By July this year, Indonesia had 562,000 QR app users. The Central Bank of Indonesia introduced a mandatory national QR code system (QRIS), which may be cited as a reason for the uptick in usage, growing by 11% every month since September 2018.

As a result of pandemic-related quarantine measures that were in force in Malaysia in April and May 2020, the country saw a sharp rise in new QR code-based payment users, culminating in no fewer than 338,700 by July this year.

The popularity of QR code payments also continued to rise in Singapore since 2018, seeing a monthly growth of 2.3% on average, despite the lack of strong influencing factors, to reach the current 96,700 recorded by UnaFinancial.

Using the exponential smoothing methods, the analysts predict the number of QR codes to reach 1.77 million people by 2025. Out of them, 122,100, 787,500 and 865,300 users will hail from Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia respectively. Indonesia is expected to continue leading the table in terms of the number of users.

UnaFinancial analysts said: “The main factor behind the upward trend in the near future may be the introduction of cross-border QR payments. Five ASEAN countries, including Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines, have agreed to cooperate on cross-border payments using QR codes or e-wallets. Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) have already launched a cross-border QR code payment system between Malaysia and Singapore in March, 2023. Later, Bank Indonesia (BI) and Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) announced the implementation of the cross-border QR payment system. The launch of QR payments between Indonesia and Singapore is planned before the end of 2023.”