Financial technology experts are reassuring the public over the national e-payment scheme, saying the system has been designed to allow fair competition while controlling risks at the present level.
"I would have to praise the programmers who designed the infrastructure of this system -- they are geniuses," Punnamas Vichitkulwongsa, chief executive of Ascend Group and president of the Thailand e-Payment Association, told a Bangkok Post conference entitled "E-payments: Driving Thailand's Economy Forward".
He said the e-payment infrastructure allows small and medium-sized banks to compete on the same platform and show their creativity in integrating financial technology and marketing in order to compete with large players.
Mr Punnamas said online payments account for only 25% of financial transactions in Thailand, compared with 90% in the US and 75% in China and Japan.
The government's e-payment scheme will encourage shoppers to make electronic transactions because of the lower cost.
"Thailand is not the first country to allow the use of ID cards to tie into accounts. More importantly, users should be aware of keeping their PromptPay ID, bank account number and password strictly confidential," Mr Punnamas said.
Michael Araneta, associate vice-president of IDC Financial Insights, said 2016 was the biggest year for financial technology in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly Thailand.
"Thailand has started the PromptPay initiative before other countries," he said, adding that by 2018 the region will see many more countries using e-payment schemes.
"Next year will be much bigger with the rise of next-generation payment services across sectors from telecom to retail."
Prinya Hom-anek, vice-president of the Thailand Information Security Association, said Thailand had rushed launching the PromptPay scheme before implementing a privacy bill.
"Without regulation, it means there is no legal penalty when service providers use our data without permission," he said.
Ruchukorn Siriyodhin, assistant governor of the Bank of Thailand, said the e-payment system has been carefully developed for 16 years.
"The central bank has played the role of policy planner, developer and regulator and now we must play a role of educating people in digital literacy," she said. "People should acknowledge the good points of having more options and tapping benefits from the national e-payment scheme."
The Bank of Thailand is drafting a payment bill that will cut duplication of the governing and regulating procedures and serve the new payment technology, both online and offline.
Ms Ruchukorn said the low fees of e-payment would also allow the system to move forward quickly as people would see the attractive costs of using the service, making it more popular and creating economies of scale.
"That will make the service fees even cheaper than the current rates," she said. "We [the central bank] will oversee the fees to be on a par with other channels. Even though we have implemented e-payment already, we still need to maintain alternative platforms such as credit cards to give users more choices."
Low-income earners registered for the e-payment scheme will be ready to benefit early next year, Finance Minister Apisak Tantiworavong told the conference.
About 1.5 million people have registered for the scheme, which is still low compared with the number of low earners countrywide, he said.
"I hope low-income earners will register for PromptPay so that we can access the right group of people who require aid," Mr Apisak said.
Current subsidies such as free utilities and bus and train fares are given to the vast majority of people, but some do not require the subsidies.
Those eligible for low-income registration are people with annual income of less than 100,000 baht who have no other assets.
However, those that do not register will miss extra benefits under this scheme only, but they will still be eligible to access existing state subsidies as usual.