Prompt Pay

[Gaybutton]

PromptPay poised for official launch tomorrow

January 26, 2017

By Sucheera Pinijparakarn

People now can make interbank transfer of funds not exceeding Bt5,000 without paying a fee to their banks if the receivers have registered on PromptPay.

The Bank of Thailand and the Finance Ministry will jointly announce the launch of PromptPay tomorrow.

Interbank funds transfers from consumer to consumer have been delayed since October last year, although money transfer from government to consumer has already been implemented since late last year, including personal income tax refund since January 4.

Individual money transfers have been taking place this week via ATM or mobile banking if receivers have registered for PromptPay. However, banks have not officially informed the public about the service until the central bank and the Finance Ministry officially make the announcement tomorrow, bankers told The Nation.

Each bank has already updated its mobile banking applications by adding the PromptPay icon. Some banks will launch TV ads to launch their PromptPay services after the official announcement.

Customers who have registered for PromptPay can transfer money to another interbank customer by selecting the PromptPay icon on mobile banking or on ATM machines.

The minimum interbank transfer is Bt1 limited to a maximum of Bt5,000, without paying any fee to the bank. Transferors will be charged Bt2 for transactions valued at between Bt5,001 to Bt30,000, Bt5 for those between Bt30,001 and Bt100,000, and Bt10 for anything above Bt100,000.

Prassanee Ouiyamaphan, Bangkok Bank executive vice president, said the bank has separated the PromptPay icon for mobile phone number and national ID number for ease of operation.

Using PromptPay will give the transferor more confidence that the money has been received by the right person. In case the amount to be transferred is more than Bt5,000, the bank will display the fee rate as a reminder to customers, she said.

The bank has created a call centre and trained staff at bank branches nationwide to help educate customers who might be confused about how to use PromptPay.

The bank will launch TV advertising to promote PromptPay after tomorrow, she said.

Kasikornbank has updated its mobile banking application since January 24. Since Tuesday, customers have been able to make interbank transfers to customers who have registered on PromptPay, without paying a fee.

The bank has added the PromptPay icon to K-mobile banking and the money transferor can fill the mobile phone number or national ID of the receiver before filling the amount to be transferred.

Siam Commercial Bank has also updated its mobile-banking feature. Customers wanting to make an interbank money transfer can select the PromptPay icon and fill the mobile phone number or ID number of the receiver.

SCB plans to launch promotions as a gimmick to lure customers.

Bank of Ayudhya plans to ask customers to update their mobile banking application tomorrow.

Thakorn Piyapan, head of Krungsri Consumer Group and Head of Digital Banking and Innovation, said the new mobile banking application “KMA Lite” will accommodate customers who want to make only PromptPay transactions. The new mobile banking app is separate from the existing Krungsri mobile banking.

He urged existing Krungsri mobile banking users to update to the new version tomorrow if they want to make interbank money transfers.

Thakorn added that Krungsri, which is one of six banks to form a consortium, has already submitted a bid to install electronic data capture (EDC) devices for debit cards with the Finance Ministry. Thakorn added that the bank consortium has prepared in laying EDC device at merchants when the Finance Ministry announce the winners, which its EDC will be used the name of TAPS.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/bu ... m/30304945

[fountainhall]

With all that we have been hearing recently about hacking and how easy it is to hack into almost any servers nowadays, what protection would those taking advantage of prompt pay have? To access my online banks in Hong Kong and the UK, I need to have two small devices, input my log-in name on screen and 1 or 2 passwords, and then a series of numbers generated by the devices. That is not as simple as it sounds as each device must first be activated by their own secret PIN. I'm now used to this and feel more secure about on-line banking than I did when it was first introduced.

However, this Prompt Pay seems to be possible using mobile phones. (I guess on-line banking is as well, although I would never dream of doing it that way.) How is it possible to make that totally secure? And if hacked, could't the hacker access my bank account?

[Alex]

Nothing is "totally secure". I use Thai banks' mobile phone apps because it's incredibly convenient. I limit my exposure simply by not having huge amounts in those bank accounts I can access this way. That works very well for me.

I won't be using PromptPay anytime soon, I'll watch others getting hacked first.

[Gaybutton]

Nothing is "totally secure".

While that is true, I am not aware of anyone losing money from a Thai bank account other than at ATMs if they placed their card into an ATM that had one of those theft devices placed there by criminals.

I don't know of anyone losing money from online banking or mobile phone banking.

[Alex]

And yet it happens on a fairly regular basis. The targets are usually Thais and some cases are spectacular enough to make the news. It's usually not the online banking itself that is insecure, for example in some cases the perps managed to get a replacement SIM card issued in order to receive OTPs that allowed them to authorize transactions.

[Gaybutton]

And yet it happens on a fairly regular basis.

Whether it does or not, I have no intention of using Prompt Pay, mainly because I don't know just how secure 'secure' is. I would think for most farang, Prompt Pay is really pointless. I pay many of my bills with use of online banking and since so far I have had no problems, I'm going to keep it that way.

When I pay a bill online, the transaction fee is all of 10 baht. I'll try to survive the loss . . .