In the financial and payment systems world, Thailand has made notable achievements attracting global attention—namely PromptPay, a payment system that has simplified spending for Thai people nationwide. With just a phone, a mobile number, or a national ID number, users can pay easily. This has expanded to QR Code payments, allowing instant payment by scanning, pushing the country towards becoming a cashless society.
This convenient scan-to-pay method has driventransaction volumesto over 2 billion per month among Thais, peaking at more than 81 million per day. These figures have grown significantly since 2017, just one year after PromptPay’s launch, when daily transactions were around 700,000.
Thairath Moneyhad the special opportunity to speak with Rahul Bhargava, the interim Chief Operating Officer of Contour Network and Senior Financial Sector Advisor at the World Bank. At the Money20/20 Asia 2026 event held in Thailand, he sees Thailand as a global model for digital infrastructure, especially in finance, where PromptPay’s prominence has established a strong foundation.
"Thailand already has a strong foundation in Digital Payments, and the next opportunity is to extend this success towards Trade Digitization and broader transactional infrastructure,"said Rahul Bhargava.
PromptPay’s success has also led to growth in Cross-Border QR Payments, where tourists can pay by scanning with their own apps. In March, transactions led by China alone reached 706.87 million baht, helping make Thailand’s payment system a financial infrastructure capable of supporting both domestic and cross-border transactions efficiently.
The discussion also touched on a crucial global economic issue—Trade Finance—which currently faces many pain points needing solutions. PromptPay’s success offers a possible new global trade need.
Although global payment systems have moved towards real-time processing, Trade Finance—financial systems supporting international trade—still suffers from longstanding issues, including heavy paperwork, manual processes, and disconnected workflows.
Rahul Bhargava, a former executive with experience in Cross-border Payments who has worked at SWIFT and is an expert in Global Trade & Payments, observes that Payments and Trade Finance are clearly in different eras today.
He explains that current Trade Finance still relies heavily on paper documents, from Letters of Credit to data verification, transaction confirmation, and coordination among banks, buyers, sellers, logistics firms, and many related agencies. A key problem is that each party often uses separate systems, with no true data integration.
Rahul Bhargava revealed that a major reason he joined Contour Network was the opportunity to connect the “trade world” with the “payment world.” After XDC, a Layer-1 blockchain focused on Trade Finance and commercial transaction infrastructure, acquired Contour, he saw a way to integrate Trade Digitization with Payments and Settlement within a unified ecosystem.
He illustrated how paper documentation causes ripple effects; for example, payment terms may be changed via email or WhatsApp, but primary documents aren’t updated accordingly, leading to disputes, operational errors, and trade delays.
Meanwhile, modern payment systems like PromptPay can send "Settlement Confirmation" almost instantly, letting recipients know within seconds that funds have arrived. However, in Trade Finance, many organizations still wait for confirmations via banks, phone calls, or emails.
He believes that the “Feedback Loop” present in PromptPay is missing in Trade Finance. This is why he is confident that “Trade Digitization” will become the next major infrastructure wave in finance, following the successful digitization of payment systems in many countries.
"Imagine the global impact if we can reduce trade transaction cycles from 14 days to just one day through digitization,"said Rahul Bhargava.
Rahul Bhargava believes that PromptPay’s global success is not due solely to technology but results from collaboration between “Top-down” and “Bottom-up” forces within Thailand’s economy.
From the Top-down perspective, he highlights the Bank of Thailand’s critical role in setting roadmaps and clear directions for digital financial infrastructure, including promoting digital payment systems, establishing common standards, and providing a sandbox environment for innovation trials.
"The Bank of Thailand sets the direction, while the community is ready to cooperate by following that plan,"said Rahul Bhargava.
But the real growth driver is the Bottom-up force—the acceptance and adoption by the private sector, banks, payment providers, and citizens ready to use new technologies daily. Rahul sees Thailand as one of the countries that has built very strong community adoption, growing PromptPay’s transactions from hundreds of thousands per day initially to over 81 million per day now.
He believes this model is the "formula" for new Digital Public Infrastructure, as building national infrastructure cannot succeed with government policy alone or private sector technology alone.
From Rahul’s perspective, the most interesting point is"Today, the same logic behind PromptPay is being applied to the world of Trade Finance and Trade Digitization."
If Thailand can enable real-time money transfers and wide adoption successfully, he sees that "Thailand could have the potential to build new Trade Infrastructure as well."
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