The solution’s adoption seeks to modernise Thailand’s bulk payments processing system and support continued real-time growth. ACI High Value and Low Value Real-Time Payments promises to further drive growth with ISO 20022-compliant bulk processing, enhancing the existing real-time payments infrastructure, and enabling new use cases such as B2B payments. ISO 20022 is seen as a key enabler for the development of future payment services, as well as facilitating cross-border linkages between Southeast Asia’s domestic payment networks, according to the official press release.

National ITMX, which is co-owned by Thailand’s largest commercial banks and governed by the Central Bank of Thailand (BOT), is responsible for developing and delivering Thailand’s digital payments infrastructure, including card-based, non-card-based, and account-to-account payments. ACI’s real-time payments solution has been successfully implemented across all 33 ITMX member banks, bridging ISO 20022 and the existing ISO 8583 standard. 

The proportion of real-time digital payments in Thailand is expected to rise from 13.3% in 2020 to 30.1% by 2025, primarily taking share from paper-based payments that currently account for 60.1% of all transactions. Real-time payments’ share of non-paper-based digital transactions is anticipated to rise from three in 10 to more than four in 10 over the next five years, spurred by high mobile wallet usage (84% of adults in 2020).