This year, with the joint support of Bank Indonesia and the People's Bank of China, China and Indonesia officially launched a landmark cross-border payment interoperability system, enabling two-way QR code scanning between the two countries' local payment apps. Citizens can complete cross-border consumption without carrying cash or exchanging foreign currency, greatly facilitating business travel and daily commuting. The system connects Indonesia's QRIS QR code payment standard with China's two major payment platforms, Alipay and UnionPay, building a convenient and efficient bilateral digital payment channel. Currently, the payment interoperability covers a wide range of scenarios: Chinese tourists in Indonesia can use Alipay and UnionPay to make purchases at over 40 million QRIS-enabled merchants, including a large number of micro, small, and medium-sized businesses. Conversely, Indonesian citizens traveling to or living in China can use local banking apps to scan and pay at over 80 million merchants across China.
For Chinese nationals long residing in Jakarta, this policy has completely transformed the previous predicament of relying on cash and being unable to use domestic payment apps. WeChat Pay and Alipay can now settle payments instantly via QR code scanning, fully eliminating the hassle of cashless travel. Beyond its convenience, this system holds significant financial and economic value. Cross-border transactions between China and Indonesia can now be settled directly in Indonesian rupiah and Chinese yuan, bypassing the US dollar system entirely, effectively reducing cross-border transaction costs. This also represents an important practice by both countries to reduce regional trade dependence on the dollar and promote local currency settlement. Meanwhile, the proliferation of digital payments has further stimulated consumption vitality. Compared with cash consumption, seamless digital payments can increase transaction frequency and consumption scale, directly benefiting the development of micro, small, and medium-sized merchants in Indonesia.
Industry experts analyze that this system can also provide data support for governments to implement targeted policies. Traditional cash transactions are difficult to track, whereas QRIS digital payments can fully record data such as tourist consumption scenarios, purchase categories, and travel preferences, helping both countries optimize cultural tourism and trade-related policies. Data shows that Indonesia's digital payment industry is growing rapidly, with 14.4 billion digital transactions completed in the first quarter of this year alone, a year-on-year increase of nearly 34%. In 2025, the number of Chinese tourists visiting Indonesia hit a six-year high, surpassing 1.3 million. As cross-border payments become increasingly convenient, bilateral cross-border consumption and economic exchanges will continue to heat up.
