Card networks bring standardised QR codes to Thailand

It's always interesting to see solutions like QRs to skyrocket across Asia, whilst Europe is littered with the remains of QR players. One more example of "how" (and "why") being much more important than "what".

My prediction is that we've seen "peak QR" and soon a new interface will start making waves. (Again, it's all about "why"...)

Oh what a tri-party tango! Doesn't matter around QR or otherwise. This "union" of titans may be the kickstart for world domination on mobile payment for another 50 years! So much for small players that are still trying to gain grounds...

The similar BharatQR was launched with much fanfare a couple of months ago in India. Intended to be a lower-cost card acceptance mechanism for merchants that are (purportedly) too small to afford POS terminals, the biggest adopter of BharatQR so far has been merchants that *do* have POS terminals!

Somewhere along the line, people seem to have missed that POS terminals are not that expensive and forgotten that merchants need a merchant agreement with the acquirer bank to be able to accept card payments, whether by POS or QR. When it comes to MAs, banks continue to be wary of issuing them to smaller merchants.

Ergo, the only merchants I've seen with BharatQR are the ones who already have MA and POS! The ice cream parlor in my neighborhood is one such merchant. I asked him why he has BharatQR when he already has a POS. He told me he thought BharatQR was a different payment method and that he didn't want to lose business in case customers wanted to use it! He also told me that I was the first customer to inquire about BharatQR in the one month following his onboarding of it.  

Let's see how it goes in Thailand.