Creating an Association of Southeast Asian Nations Payment System: Policy and Regulatory Issues

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is expected to benefit from the significant growth in the Asia-Pacific payments market. Growth in economic activity would increase the size, scale, and scope of payment transactions. Enabling the scale and scope of payments would in turn increase economic activity. This would also require national payment systems to be regionalized and operate with cross-border and multi-currency capabilities. As existing regional payment arrangements have illustrated how they can be successfully established, ASEAN can itself leverage on its current cooperative forums in creating a more regionalized payment system. This paper assesses the challenges ASEAN faces in doing so.