Indonesia is widening its cross-border digital payment infrastructure to make life easier for tourists and strengthen opportunities for small businesses, with Bank Indonesia unveiling updates to its QRIS Antarnegara programme and a new digital platform for international visitors at FEKDI x IFSE 2026 in Jakarta.
The announcements respond to a shift in Indonesia’s tourism numbers. International arrivals grew from 11.68mn in 2023 to 15.39mn in 2025, but average spending per visitor actually fell to around $1,267 over the same period — a gap Bank Indonesia wants to close by making it simpler for travellers to spend once they’re in the country. Deputy Governor Senior Aida S Budiman said payment systems can simplify transactions for travellers, framing connectivity as something that links users to a broader economic ecosystem rather than just linking systems together.
QRIS, Indonesia’s national QR payment standard, has built a sizeable domestic base to expand from: 69.3mn users and more than 47mn merchants, 96.7% of which are small and medium enterprises. That foundation is now extending across borders. As of August 2026, QRIS Antarnegara connects Indonesia with Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Japan, South Korea and China, with cooperation under development for Timor-Leste and Hong Kong. The system lets Indonesian travellers pay abroad using their domestic apps, while inbound visitors can pay Indonesian merchants using apps from their home countries. By August 2026, inbound transactions reached 17.8mn, worth IDR6.2tn ($405mn), while outbound transactions totalled 5mn, worth IDR1.85tn ($121mn). The programme picked up a 50-in-5 Award for collaboration from the Digital Public Goods Alliance at a UN General Assembly side event.
Even with that growth, Bank Indonesia acknowledged QRIS Antarnegara currently reaches only around 39.77% of international visitors, with travellers from markets including Australia still not connected through the system. To close that gap, the central bank launched the Indonesia Travel Pack (ITP) 2026, a fully digital platform replacing a physical pilot programme trialled in 2025 at Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport. The new version bundles three services accessible via QR code before and during a trip: destination and culinary information under “Explore,” payment access under “Pay,” and SIM and eSIM connectivity under “Connect.” It’s available at airports in the InJourney ecosystem as well as tourism centres and retail locations across Jakarta and Banten.
Bank Indonesia also flagged the security trade-offs that come with broader connectivity, with Deputy Governor Filianingsih Hendarta noting that trust takes a long time to build but can be lost in an instant. The bank said expanding payment access must go hand in hand with stronger resilience against fraud, money laundering and misuse of AI, alongside continued participation in cross-border initiatives including Project Nexus and BI-FAST.