Electronic payments offer flexibility

Teera Apaiwong, president of National ITMX, said that under the plan, the services will be divided into three phases of commercial launch. It is expected all three phases will be completed and ready to provide services by the end of this year.

The first phase is scheduled to launch in April. The initial service will be SMART (short for small and medium amount retail transaction) Credit and Debit. It will allow people to make direct debits across the banks. A direct debit creates several new payment services such as direct payment of electricity and water bills.

The new service, totally built via ITMX, is to provide transfer and payment services across banks via telephone or over the Internet.

The second phase is to launch Risk Management services, designed with financial and operational risk protection mechanisms and to consider the availability of security infrastructure.

The last phase will eventually transform the exiting ATM Pool to run over the new ITMX infrastructure. It will facilitate fast and safe transactions across banks via cross-payment services including bank counters, customer deposit machines, ATMs, mobile and fixed phones, and the Internet.

The new ITMX system is designed to build a national infrastructure and standard for inter-bank transactions. Its services come under the Bank of Thailand's regulations.

The company provides a wider range of electronic-payment types across the banks as well as across payment devices and other places of payment, both off line and online.

The ITMX service will be available to 19 banks that operate in the country.

All services include deposit-withdraw and balance checking across banks via ATMs, transfers across banks via ATMs and bank counters, the new SMART, transfers and payments across banks via telephone, over the Internet, via mobile phone, and international withdrawals and payments across banks via ATMs.

The company was set up last year by changing the name from ATM Pool and increasing the registered capital to Bt50 million.

"ITMX is the foundation for the next generation of electronic-payment channels that is designed to support multiple methods of payment across banks, both locally and internationally, without the boundaries of place and time," said Teera. It is expected that once ITMX is launched, it will reduce financial transactions in the form of paper-based cheques as well extend the electronic-payment system and increase channels for customers.

Asina Pornwasin

The Nation