ASEAN RPC

Overview

ASEAN Regional Payment Connectivity (RPC) is an umbrella initiative among Southeast Asian central banks to make cross-border retail payments faster, cheaper, more transparent and more inclusive — chiefly by linking national QR-code payment schemes and fast-payment systems so that travellers and merchants can transact across borders in local currencies [1][1][5]5. RPC is not itself a QR symbology or a single settlement engine; it is the coordination framework under which countries' own QR standards (such as Indonesia's QRIS, Thailand's PromptPay, Malaysia's DuitNow and Singapore's PayNow) are interlinked, mostly through bilateral linkages, into a region-wide acceptance network [1][1][5]5.

History

• 14 November 2022 — A Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Regional Payment Connectivity was signed in Bali, Indonesia, on the sidelines of the G20 Leaders' Summit, by the five founding central banks: Bank Indonesia (BI), Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Bank of Thailand (BOT) [1][1][2]2.
• August 2023 — Vietnam (State Bank of Vietnam) joined as the sixth member [5]5.
• February 2024 — Brunei Darussalam joined [5]5.
• April 2024 — Lao PDR joined [5]5.
• 8–10 April 2025 — The National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) announced participation at the 12th ASEAN Finance Ministers' and Central Bank Governors' Meeting in Kuala Lumpur, becoming the ninth member [3]3.

The MoU's signing coincided with the start of Indonesia's 2023 ASEAN chairmanship, and the initiative is aligned with ASEAN's commitment to achieve regional payments interoperability and connectivity by 2025 and with the G20 Roadmap for cross-border payments [1][1][2]2.

Technical specification

RPC works at the interlinking layer rather than as a single shared platform. Its two main modalities are [1][1][3][3][5]5:

• QR-code linkages — connecting national QR standards so a payer can scan a foreign merchant's QR with a home-country app. The connected national QR schemes include Cambodia's KHQR, Indonesia's QRIS, Lao PDR's Lao QR, Malaysia's DuitNow QR, the Philippines' QR Ph, Singapore's PayNow, Thailand's PromptPay and Vietnam's VietQR [5]5.
• Fast-payment linkages — connecting real-time account-to-account systems (for example PromptPay–PayNow) so cross-border transfers settle in near-real time rather than the two to three days typical of older correspondent routing [1]1.

Payments are settled in local currencies, which removes intermediary steps and reduces both cost and transaction time [1][1][5]5. The architecture is predominantly bilateral: each country pair establishes its own QR/fast-payment link under the common RPC framework, in contrast to a single multilateral hub [1][1][3]3.

Use cases

• Tourism and travel retail — cross-border QR merchant payments for travellers within ASEAN, the most visible consumer use case [1][1][5]5.
• Remittances and P2P — fast-payment account-to-account transfers between members [1]1.
• Merchant acceptance — enabling small merchants across member countries to accept inbound foreign-app payments via their existing national QR code [5]5.

Implementations

Membership and connectivity (as of 2025):

• Nine ASEAN central banks: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand (founders, Nov 2022), Vietnam (Aug 2023), Brunei Darussalam (Feb 2024), Lao PDR (Apr 2024) and Cambodia (Apr 2025) [1][1][3][3][5]5.
• Eight national QR schemes referenced as connected or being connected: KHQR, QRIS, Lao QR, DuitNow, QR Ph, PayNow, PromptPay and VietQR [5]5.
• Reported extensions beyond ASEAN include Japan exploring integration of its QR payments, and a China–Indonesia cross-border QR pilot enabling Indonesian merchants to accept Alipay and UnionPay [5]5.

Comparison

RPC is the QR-acceptance / bilateral-linkage umbrella for Southeast Asia, and it contrasts directly with Nexus: Nexus replaces the many bilateral links RPC relies on with a single multilateral connection per instant-payment system, scaling better as the network grows [1]1. The two are convergent in goal — three RPC members (Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand) plus India are the core of Nexus, and Indonesia is a Nexus observer — so RPC's bilateral links are expected to be complemented or absorbed by the multilateral Nexus hub over time [1]1. RPC also differs from PAPSS and Buna, which are regional multi-currency settlement engines (Africa and the Arab region respectively); RPC instead coordinates the consumer-facing QR and fast-payment layer while relying on existing national settlement arrangements [1][1][5]5.

Fun facts

• The founding RPC MoU was signed at the G20 Bali summit under Indonesia's presidency, tying a regional ASEAN payment effort directly to the global G20 cross-border-payments agenda [1][1][2]2.

Status

RPC is live and expanding. The founding MoU was signed on 14 November 2022; membership grew to nine central banks by April 2025 with Cambodia's accession, and multiple bilateral QR and fast-payment corridors among members are already operational, with further linkages and external partners (Japan, China) under exploration [1][1][3][3][5]5.

Sources

1 Central Banks of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand seal cooperation in Regional Payment Connectivity — Monetary Authority of Singapore, November 2022 2 Five central banks seal cooperation in regional payment connectivity — Bank Negara Malaysia, November 2022 3 Cambodia's central bank joins the Regional Payment Connectivity initiative — GovInsider, 2025 4 The National Bank of Cambodia Formally Joins the Regional Payment Connectivity Initiative — Monetary Authority of Singapore, April 2025 5 The Rise of Cross-Border QR Payment Systems in Southeast Asia — AInvest, 2025

Deployments

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

• LA — LA-laos.md

Regions / aggregations not mapped to a single country

• ASEAN