Southeast Asia’s QR Code payments to surge 590% by 2028

This is due to the cross-border interoperability within countries in the region. 

The volume of QR code payments in Southeast Asia is expected to skyrocket by 590% in 2028 to reach 90 billion from 13 billion in 2023, a report by Juniper Research found.

The significant increase in the region and other developing markets is due to the “financial inclusivity” QR payments offer that allows unbanked users to transact digitally. This is compared to the very limited adoption in Western markets which emphasises the “global divide in QR payment markets.”

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Juniper Research said that cross-border interoperability within Southeast Asian markets will drive strong growth in the market volume of QR payments.

It noted Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand have unified their payment standards that allow international visitors to pay using their domestic digital wallets.

Singapore and the Philippines are also unifying their payments by the end of 2023, it said.

Juniper Research said that national QR payment schemes such as India’s UPI and Brazil’s Pix contributed to encouraging market adoption. The success also led Kenya and Bangladesh to follow suit.