QRIS

Quick Response Code Indonesia Standard (abbreviated as QRIS, the abbreviation being a play on keris, a traditional sword; Indonesian: Kode QR Standar Indonesia) is an Indonesian QR code payment and NFC contactless payment (as QRIS Tap) standards developed by Bank Indonesia (BI) and Indonesian Payment System Association (ASPI) for cashless payments in Indonesia.

QRIS logo

Cross-border linkage

To support Indonesia's vision of a standardized global trade and retail payment infrastructure, QRIS has established and rapidly expanded its cross-border transactions reach. As of 2 August 2024, users can conveniently pay with QRIS or participating apps in Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia.

QRIS's cross-border journey commenced with a pilot between Indonesia and Thailand on 17 August 2021, followed by a full rollout on 29 August 2022.^[1] A similar path was taken with Malaysia, starting with a pilot on 27 January 2022, and a commercial launch on 8 May 2023.^[2] The most recent expansion came on 17 November 2023, with the integration of Singapore.^[3]

By 2 August 2024, MoUs have been signed with South Korea and the United Arab Emirates, with plans to enable QRIS transactions in these countries, as well as Japan and India, in the near future.^[4]

History

Before Bank Indonesia (BI) applied the standard, QR codes used by mobile payment services were exclusive to themselves; a QR code issued by one service could not be used by another. On 16 August 2019, by the ratification of Board of Governor Decree No. 21/18/PADG/2019 on the Implementation of Quick Response Code National Standard for Payment Purpose, BI announced integration of cashless payment methods and services.^[5] This standard, named Quick Response Code Indonesia Standard (QRIS), was launched on the 74th anniversary of Indonesia's Independence Day.^[6] Payment services were required to implement QRIS by 1 January 2020.^[7]

During the start of COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia, many small and large businesses in Indonesia registered their stores to obtain a QRIS-compliant QR code to accommodate increasing demand of online transactions and reduce the spread of COVID-19 from banknotes and coins. Secretary of Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs of The Republic of Indonesia, Rully Indrawan, stated that by using QRIS, merchants "...could develop their credit profile, which in turn increases their chance to get funding loans. [...] Each transaction can also be documented and directly transferred to merchant's bank account, which helps prevent robbery and distribution of counterfeit money."^[8]

According to BI, by October 2020, QRIS had been implemented by 3.6 million small and micro businesses in Indonesia.^[9] QRIS has also been implemented in several tourist attractions^[10] and public transport ticketing apps.^[11][12]

By October 2023, the number of QRIS merchants had already reached 29.6 million, along with 43.44 million users, with 92 percent of the merchants being MSMEs.^[13]

On March 2025, NFC-based QRIS payments, branded as QRIS Tap, was launched by Bank Indonesia.^[14] The standard was developed to improve the slow transaction speed of QR code payments. QRIS Tap is initially available to Android phones, with iOS support in the future.^[15]

Appraisal

United States Trade Representative in their 2025 Foreign Trade Barriers report highlight that QRIS along with other monetary policies enacted by Bank Indonesia are limiting American payment options.^[16] According to the report, U.S. companies, including payment providers and banks, noted concern that during BI’s QR code policymaking process, international stakeholders were neither informed of the nature of the potential changes nor given an opportunity to explain their views on such a system, including how it might be designed to interact most seamlessly with existing payment systems.^[16][17]