Thailand leads Southeast Asia in mobile banking application usage: Visa study

10/02/2024

 

Visa, a world leader in digital payments, today revealed the latest findings from its Consumer Payment Attitudes Study (the “Study”), where Thailand leads the Southeast Asia region in frequency of mobile banking application usage. Based on this regional study, 97 per cent of Thai consumers said they use mobile banking application at least once a week or more. This is followed by Vietnam (95%) and Indonesia (90%).

On average, almost nine in 10 Southeast Asian consumers (89%) use mobile banking application at least once a week. Mobile banking application continue to be the preferred method of online banking across all surveyed markets. Thailand ranks first, with 96 per cent of consumers favoring banking application over website, followed closely by Indonesia (95%) and Vietnam (92%).

Punnamas Vichitkulwongsa, Country Manager for Visa Thailand, said: " Digital payments become a part of everyday life for consumers across Southeast Asia, as they have more ways to pay with contactless cards, smartphones, and QR codes. We also continue to see digital payments being increasingly embraced across all spectrums of businesses, from local food stalls to mass public transportation operators. Visa is committed to work with various stakeholders in the payments ecosystem to deliver a seamless digital payments experience that is fast, convenient, and secure for everyone and everywhere.”

The more digital payments are used by consumers across the region, the less amount of cash they carry. The study shows that 46 per cent of Southeast Asian consumers have carried less cash compared to the previous year, led by Vietnam (56%), Malaysia (49%), and Thailand (47%). The top reasons for carrying less cash are 1) using more contactless digital payments, 2) more places accepting digital payments, and 3) concerns about cash being lost or stolen.

Generative AI (Gen AI) is also gaining recognition among Southeast Asian consumers, with 75 per cent having heard of the concept or knowing what it is. For Gen AI in banking applications, one-third of Southeast Asian consumers (32%) have interacted with Gen AI, while 38 per cent are aware but have yet to interact with it. Across consumer segments, affluent consumers (51%) are better aware of Gen AI compared to mass segment (37%).

More interestingly, apart from the high awareness rate, the top three services consumers in the region are looking for from Gen AI in banking are 1) fraud detection or being alerted of possible fraudulent transactions (79%), 2) customer interaction for product and service inquiries (73%), and 3) personalized financial products recommendations (71%).

Real-time payments (RTP) are also rapidly expanding, with 76 per cent of Southeast Asian consumers aware of the method and 47 per cent having used RTP for fund transfers. Thailand ranked as the top in the region in RTP usage frequency, with 86 per cent of respondents making RTP transaction at least once a week, followed by Vietnam (84%) and Indonesia (69%).

Despite high awareness and adoption rates, there are some reservations among Southeast Asian consumers towards using RTP. The top concerns for RTP adoption are security risk (44%), preference to apply other digital payment methods e.g., credit cards/debit cards (42%), and lack of understanding (41%).

 

 

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¹ The Visa Consumer Payment Attitudes Study 2023 was conducted by CLEAR on behalf of Visa between October and November 2023 across seven Southeast Asian countries: Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. The total sample size is 6,550 including 1,050 consumers in Thailand aged 18 – 65, covering all education groups with a minimum income cut-off of THB 15,000.

 

About Visa

Visa (NYSE: V) is a world leader in digital payments, facilitating transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. We believe that economies that include everyone everywhere, uplift everyone everywhere and see access as foundational to the future of money movement. Learn more at Visa.com.