Thai and Japanese industry representatives and regional officials discussed wider cross-border finance at a Bangkok roundtable, where an existing QR service and a separately reported tourism-app proposal showed possible uses of connected payment systems.
The Oct. 15 gathering was titled Tokenized Money, Borderless Growth: How Tokyo and Thailand Can Build ASEAN’s Next Financial Corridor. ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO) Director/CEO Yasuto Watanabe said expanding payment networks means making separate systems work together and coordinating the rules regulators apply. He added that wider networks can bring higher operating costs and complexity.
Thai tourists already use a QR service to pay in Japan. Customers generate a MyPromptQR code in a mobile banking app, which participating Japanese merchants scan for payment. The Bank of Thailand (BOT) says it supported the Thai banks and payment providers operating in Japan that put the service in place.
Separately, the Bangkok Post reported that industry representatives proposed a Thai-Japanese tourism app combining payment tools with bookings, travel information and augmented-reality features. The newspaper also reported a claim that tokenized money could reduce transaction costs for tourists, migrant workers and small and medium-sized businesses. It described the app as a proposal and did not report a launch date.
Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) data show 1,233,103 arrivals from Thailand in 2025, up 7.3% from 2024. Thailand’s National Statistical Office (NSO) published Ministry of Tourism and Sports (MOTS) data showing 1,091,227 Japanese tourist arrivals in Thailand that year. The two figures follow their countries’ separate statistical measures.
Watanabe’s AMRO speech identified tourism, remittances and financial inclusion as potential benefits of payment connectivity. It also said stablecoins and tokenized deposits raise regulatory and financial-stability concerns, underscoring the need for safeguards as payment systems connect.
