Asian pre paid debit card market
Tarisa Watanagase, the governor of the Bank of Thailand, said the central bank's payment-system framework over the next four years was aimed at reducing the use of cash and cheques. The high-value money-transfer Bahtnet system had received a satisfactory rating by the IMF's financial sector assessment programme, she said. Dr Tarisa said the priority of the central bank's 2010 payment-system framework was on promoting electronic transfers. She said local consumers and businesspeople were still heavy users of cash and cheques, resulting in high operating costs and inefficiency.
Thailand's usage of cash currently stands at 11.3% of gross domestic product, compared to 6.4% in Malaysia, 5.5% in Indonesia, 8.4% in Singapore, 16.3% in Japan and 3.2% in Korea. The country's usage of cheques stood at 1.4 per person, compared with 6.9 in Malaysia, 0.3 in Indonesia, 20.5 in Singapore, 1.2 in Japan and 26.7 in Korea. Charumporn Chotikasatien, a vice-president at Siam Commercial Bank, said the popularity of debit-card usage in the country remained low as local consumers preferred to use credit cards for high-value purchases and cash for low-value items. If you are an Asia based business looking to enter the prepaid debit card market, or currently operate a credit card that you would like to outsource - Please complete the contact form to find out more...
