Launch of Prompt Pay tempts Thai consumers

The launch of Prompt Pay, the Thai government-sponsored e-payment platform, looks set to transform the e-banking experience for many Thai consumers. YouGov, as one of the world’s leading market research firms, polled 1,022 netizens in Thailand in November 2016 to find out how trends in e-payment are changing.

Prompt Pay has already attracted significant attention and appears to be a welcome new platform, with nearly three-quarters of netizens (74%) intending to use the service in the future. By contrast, just 7% of those polled have not heard of the service.

It seems that Prompt Pay will provide a multi-service solution to many Thais, with over half of those who intend on using Prompt Pay immediately after it launches planning to use it across multiple channels (54%). Internet banking is the most popular single channel, with one in five intending to use Prompt Pay solely in conjunction with internet banking. Mobile banking is the next most popular, with 15% of people intending to use Prompt Pay solely on this channel. ATM is the least popular single platform, attracting just 10% of intentions.

This contrasts with overall financial transaction behaviour, where ATM use is the most used channel for all netizens; 66% of those polled have used an ATM in the past month, followed by 57% using internet banking services, 52% using branch services, and 46% using mobile banking services in the past month.

Saving and spending are the most-used banking services that those polled have used in the past 12 months. Deposits are the most popular, used by 84% of netizens, followed by credit cards (52%) and debit cards (46%).

E-channels are transforming how Thai pay

E-payment providers are becoming increasingly popular. While 38% of people polled had never used such a service up to three month ago, when reflecting on the past one month that number fell to just 8%.

Some services appear growing in popularity more than others, particularly True Money. While 38% of those polled said they had used this e-payment provider in the past three months, the percentage grew to 53% when asked which e-payment providers consumers had used in the past one month. Following True Money, the second and third most popular e-payment providers are Linepay and Rabbit, which have been used by 17% and 15% of those polled respectively.

Data from research was collected among YouGov’s panelists in November 2016 and was weighted to be representative of online population. Sample size: Thailand (n = 1,022)