BPD Bali Expands QRIS to Target South Korea
Denpasar (ANTARA) - Regional-owned enterprise PT Bank Pembangunan Daerah (BPD) Bali is expanding the implementation of cross-border digital payment systems using Quick Response Code Indonesian Standard (QRIS) to target the South Korean market.
“We are currently processing the permit with Bank Indonesia,” said the President Director of Bank BPD Bali, I Nyoman Sudharma, in Denpasar, Bali, on Thursday.
He explained that the Land of the Morning Calm is the fifth country targeted, following previous collaborations on barcode or QR code-based payments with Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Japan.
According to him, South Korea is one of the potential countries for developing cross-border transactions using QRIS.
“South Korea’s central bank is massively promoting cross-border QR payments like Indonesia’s QRIS; we estimate the potential is good,” he added.
Not only that, the number of tourist visits from South Korea is also relatively high in Indonesia, especially in Bali, making it potential to support tourist payment systems.
Based on data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) of Bali Province, cumulatively from January to December 2025, visits by tourists from South Korea reached 346,000 people, an increase of 4.99% compared to 2024 which reached 294,000 people.
Tourists from South Korea hold the fourth position in the number of foreign tourist visits to Bali in 2025.
Sudharma added that from a technology perspective, his side is also strengthening information technology aspects, cyber security management, and data security which are continuously improved in accordance with applicable regulations.
BPD Bali is the only regional development bank in the country implementing cross-border QRIS payment systems and is now gradually implementing it for South Korea.
Bank Indonesia (BI) previously launched cross-border QRIS using domestic applications with South Korea on 1 April 2026.
Through this collaboration, an integrated, efficient, and inclusive payment system can be built as a foundation for digital economic connectivity between the two countries.
The central bank recorded that since its launch, QRIS has 60.77 million users as of February 2026.
Overall, the frequency of transactions by foreign tourists transacting in Indonesia (inbound) is higher than transactions by Indonesians abroad (outbound).
In 2025, BI recorded 5.9 million inbound transactions, surpassing outbound transactions recorded at 1.6 million.
As of February 2026, overall, the QRIS collaboration with Thailand since August 2022 recorded 1.64 million transactions with a value of Rp656.27 billion, with Malaysia since May 2023 reaching 10.66 million transactions with a value of Rp2.75 trillion.
Then, with Singapore since November 2023 reaching 554,000 transactions with a value of Rp179.28 billion and with Japan since August 2025 achieving 5,088 transactions, with a value of Rp428.80 million.