The quick-response code, or QR, lets customers make payments by scanning it with their mobile phones. It’s fast, easy and cheap for merchants, and cash is making less of an appearance, with some shops not accepting it at all. The uptake is paving the way for Indonesia to capture the billions of dollars of informal economic activity overlooked in taxation and even statistics due to small businesses’ reliance on cash.
“Gone are the days when merchants need to have card terminals, which are costly,” said Budi Gandasoebrata, managing director at GoTo Financial, which oversees the nation’s most widely-used e-wallet GoPay. “Today, with just a printer and an image file they can start accepting payments in QR.”