Dear Subscriber,
Indonesia continues to show its strength in the national QR payment system (QRIS). Over the first six months of the year, QRIS transactions grew as much as 100%, reflecting powerful adoption momentum built on close collaboration across banks, non-banks institutions, regulators, and merchants. Each playing a part in scaling the unified payment standard nationwide.
Following that domestic success, QRIS has officially expanded beyond the nation’s borders, now live in neighboring Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. It’s even being cited as a reference model for digital payment system development across the region.
QRIS’ success is a strong positive signal for Indonesia’s financial inclusion, and the number suggests it’s playing a real part in shrinking the unbanked segment. LPS data shows the nation’s unbanked has reduced for three straight years, dropping to 49.7 million in 2025.
Part of that story traces back to QRIS Tuntas, a feature launched by Bank Indonesia. Built specifically for unbanked and underserved communities, it allows users to send money to any bank or e-wallet account, as long as the recipient has a QRIS code. No cards needed. That’s the quiet power behind QRIS: interoperability. Banks and digital wallets all connect through one unified system.
With the solid foundation already laid, the road ahead looks less like a bet on adoption and more about evolving the nation’s economic growth and financial inclusion, and goes beyond shaping the region’s broader digital payments.
Stay curious,
Foundry Collective
QRIS surging, thanks to growing scale of ecosystem
In the first six months of this year, QRIS adoption is showing little sign of slowing, with transaction volume surging 100% year-on-year (YoY) to 12.55 billion, while transaction value climbed 89.52% (YoY) to Rp600.69 trillion (about $33.5B).
The rapid growth is reflected in its expanding user and merchant base. Speaking at the Prima Executive Gathering 2026 in Bali, Deputy Governor Filianingsih Hendarta highlighted that digital payment has become part of Indonesian’s everyday activity.
QRIS’ success is evidently underpinned by its interoperability and growing ecosystem. Currently, it’s connected across 96 banks, 60 non-bank financial institutions, and four payment switching operators.
Equally important, it’s driven by the widespread adoption among MSMEs and small merchants, giving them simpler ways than before to accept cashless payments, particularly for the low-value transactions, without the hassle of handling small changes.
Strong shifting behavior, MSMEs widening the inclusion
We can see it almost everywhere, street food merchants and other small stalls, all accepting QRIS with a QR code taped to their carts. Grabbing a plate of soto no longer means a detour to the ATM just to withdraw Rp20,000 in cash.
That shift shows something bigger that QRIS may have outgrown its original role as a payment method only for larger purchases, typically at places like malls and supermarkets. It is increasingly becoming the everyday commerce, routine transactions with daily spending.
Filianingsih tied this directly to the broader evolution of digital payment, particularly one driven by MSMEs. QRIS, she said, has now evolved into the backbone of the country’s digital payment system. It’s no longer just a fast, easy, cheap, and secure, it also has become the primary entry point for MSMEs into the broader digital financial ecosystem.
The entry point matters because MSMEs are one of the segments least exposed to formal financial access. Many have historically struggled to manage cash flow simply due to the lack of owning a bank account.
As of June 2026, the payment system had around 66 million users and 96.68% of QRIS’s 44.86 million merchants are MSMEs.
“Digital transformation is key to boosting productivity, expanding market access, and helping MSMEs scale up, supporting more inclusive, sustainable economic growth,“ said Hendarta recently.
With that foundation, Indonesia is now aiming higher by targeting 70 million users, 47 million merchants, and 17 billion transactions in volume by the end of 2026.
From domestic built to shaping regional payment standard
Roshan Raj Behera, a partner at Redseer Strategy Consultants, called Indonesia as one of Southeast Asia’s most ambitious players in cross-border QR payments. “Indonesia stands out for the pace of QRIS expansion,” he said through an interview in Business Times recently.
QRIS payments currently can be used across six countries in Asia, and already live in Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand within SEA. That means a lot for travelers who usually fumble with exact change or large bills in a foreign currency.
But the more telling story here isn’t only about travel convenience. The cross border expansion signals for Indonesia’s digital payment ecosystem as a whole. Unlike China, which is dominated by closed platforms like Alipay and WeChat Pay, QRIS was built as an open standard to make cross-border transaction reach possible.
Paired with the China connection launched in April, that puts QRIS at the intersection of three of Asia’s largest QR payment markets.
QRIS’s decision to go wider, opening itself rather than staying closed and built for domestic use, and it may be exactly what positions Indonesia less as a market that adopts regional payment standards.
If that holds, the trajectory and next chapter for the country’s digital payment industry may not be only about closing the financial gap with more advanced markets and more as one helps shape them.
That positioning confirms with where Indonesia already sits in the region. The country holds SEA’s largest digital payments market, with total transaction value projected to reach US$371.6 billion in 2025 and climb to US$680.4 billion by 2029, according to Statista.
The next phase of growth may look different because it’s no longer about getting more people to adopt QRIS, it’s about what those already-adopted users or the businesses built around do next and widening the financial inclusion across layered segments.
Photo credit: Bank Indonesia