Vietnam, the Philippines and Brunei will join other major Southeast Asian economies in an interconnected QR code payment system that aims to reduce reliance on the US dollar – Nikkei reported
Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore have previously joined the same initiative.
Payments through the system will be made in local currency, meaning payments in Thailand using the Indonesian app will be directly exchanged into rupiahs and baht, bypassing the US dollar as an intermediary.
Next, the central banks will seek to link this network with other regional clusters around the world, and bring the same structure to real-time bank transfers and even central bank digital currencies eventually.