Thailand has become the first country in the world to introduce Visa's Destinations programme nationwide, with the scheme intended to make payments easier for visitors and widen digital-payment acceptance among smaller businesses.

Launched with the Tourism Authority of Thailand, Visa Destinations Thailand covers Bangkok, Phuket, Chiang Mai, Pattaya, Udon Thani, Samui, Hua Hin and Hat Yai. It is open to all Visa cardholders.

Visa has previously run Destinations programmes at city level elsewhere. Thailand is the first market in Asia Pacific to adopt it, and the first country globally to roll it out across an entire nation.

A smoother trip for cardholders

The programme is intended to support travellers throughout their journey, from planning and booking through to spending in Thailand. It covers transport, restaurants, shopping, accommodation, wellness and day-to-day visitor experiences.

For foreign residents and tourists, the immediate relevance is likely to be broader card and QR-payment options, particularly if more small and independent merchants join. Cash will remain useful in many settings, but the initiative is designed to reduce the need for visitors to rely solely on banknotes when travelling beyond major shopping centres and hotel areas.

Visa said Thailand was a natural choice because tourism is a major part of the economy and leading inbound spenders come from long-haul, higher-spending markets. These include the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, France and the United Arab Emirates.

Bringing smaller businesses into digital payments

The scheme is based on four elements: payment innovation; information from Visa's global VisaNet network; partnerships across the tourism sector; and increasing the number of merchants able to accept digital payments.

Visa has already enrolled more than 50 merchants in Bangkok's historic Song Wat riverside district. It aims to extend digital-payment acceptance to 56,000 small businesses nationwide.

Anthony Watson, Visa Thailand's country manager, said the programme would help Thai merchants of all sizes gain more value from spending by international visitors, while making transactions more seamless and trusted for both customers and businesses.

The launch also forms part of Thailand's wider focus on cashless tourism and attracting higher-value, more sustainable visitors rather than simply increasing arrival numbers. For expats, retirees and frequent visitors, the practical benefit will depend on how quickly local outlets take up the payment facilities.

Picture courtesy of Visa Destinations

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19 July 2026

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Visa can be expensive for the shopkeeper/business.. It is not for free, and sometimes even the receiving business/shop will let the cardholder pay for the costs.

1 hour ago, Georgealbert said:

Bringing smaller businesses into digital payments

"One ring to bring them all and in the darkness and bind them"

Suck them in and suck them dry with fees. Tax man can get into their pants as well.

Anthony Watson, Visa Thailand's country manager, said the programme would help Thai merchants of all sizes gain more value from spending by international visitors, while making transactions more seamless and trusted for both customers and businesses.

How nice. Now, what are the fees/charges etc?

The article fails to say exactly what it is - i.e.;

A physical card or an AP

How is it obtained

Who is eligible

Any cost(s)

Edited July 19Jul 19 by scottiejohn

8 minutes ago, scottiejohn said:

The article fails to say exactly what it is - i.e.;

A physical card or an AP

How is it obtained

Who is eligible

Any cost(s)

It's basically nothing at all. Explained here....Visa Destinations: Discover https://share.google/9RMXzLPlqZTXdE0rE

3 hours ago, Georgealbert said:

For expats, retirees and frequent visitors, the practical benefit will depend on how quickly local outlets take up the payment facilities.

Great. Will paying visa VISA card still be optional? If so, no problem for the boo-birds.

Edited July 19Jul 19 by JerryM

27 minutes ago, scottiejohn said:

The article fails to say exactly what it is - i.e.;

A physical card or an AP

How is it obtained

Who is eligible

Any cost(s)

You can just send people money nowadays as well refunds, realtime, based on the visa card number. For merchants the lowest possible fee is 1%. It's quite a joke as in reality visa and mastercard both are the same blackrock owned <deleted>e and they also now somehow charge 350 baht fee on ATM withdrawals using a mastercard debit card, while its still the usual 250 on visa.

Not sure the logic with all this, as you need to share your visa card number with strangers, all they need is a expiry date and 3 numbers to crack it. Best guess some easy to use QR scan thing doing effectively the same by scanning or whatever.

Edited July 19Jul 19 by sunrisecoconuts

5 minutes ago, sunrisecoconuts said:

It's quite a joke as in reality visa and mastercard both are the same blackrock owned

Ownership

Visa is mainly owned by institutional investors, who own over 95% of shares. The largest shareholders in December 2023 were:

The Vanguard Group (8.94%)

BlackRock (7.99%)

State Street Corporation (4.64%)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Inc.

2 minutes ago, JerryM said:

Ownership

Visa is mainly owned by institutional investors, who own over 95% of shares. The largest shareholders in December 2023 were:

The Vanguard Group (8.94%)

BlackRock (7.99%)

State Street Corporation (4.64%)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Inc.

Yeah except that only 10% of people is able or is using their voting right, on those company shares, which means Larry Fink controls 90% of the voting rights, over all that capital, in all companies, AKA he makes the decisions with his palls.

You do not need to own the shares or money in your name, to have the power and control over shares or money. The power and control is what generates abundant recurring income for the elite. They not depend on a 'net worth figure'.

Edited July 19Jul 19 by sunrisecoconuts

11 minutes ago, sunrisecoconuts said:

Yeah except that only 10% of people is able or is using their voting right, on those company shares, which means Larry Fink controls 90% of the voting rights, over all that capital, in all companies, AKA he makes the decisions with his palls.

So Larry Fink is able to vote 90% of Black Rock's 8% ownership of VISA.

So what. If you don't want to use VISA in Thailand then don't.

Edited July 19Jul 19 by JerryM

These things always start out as being for the conveninece of the people. For now, cash is still accepted. But the next (obvious) step is for them to say, "This works so well, we don't need to bother with cash anymore." Since IKEA at Mega BangNa stopped accepting cash last year, I have stopped buying from them. How can it even be legal not to accept a country's currency at a shop? I will resist for as long as I can.

11 minutes ago, JerryM said:

So Larry Fink is able to vote 90% of Black Rock's 8% ownership of VISA.

So what. If you don't want to use VISA in Thailand then don't.

Larry Fink is just 1 of very few people, that run all the funds, but keep your head in the mud, maybe go a bit deeper. It is not a conspiracy, these are the facts, in fact Larry Fink was under a large pressure since recent years already exactly for this.

Same that the facts are that this is how elites globally, make their money since generations, over centuries even. That is why there is no simple proven 'highest net worth rotschild elite' that peasants wanted to see for it to be proof a elite runs the show.

The mindfk is that peasants depend on money, the elite depends on controlling resources and infrastructure / banking.

Edited July 19Jul 19 by sunrisecoconuts

4 hours ago, Georgealbert said:

Cash will remain useful in many settings, but the initiative is designed to reduce the need for visitors to rely solely on banknotes when travelling beyond major shopping centres and hotel areas.

But still they are insisting on a 20,000-40,000baht cash flash as an entry requirement!

11 minutes ago, sunrisecoconuts said:

Larry Fink is just 1 of very few people, that run all the funds, but keep your head in the mud, maybe go a bit deeper

Thank you. Sometimes it is convenient for me to use a VISA card at BigC. As far as this topic goes, that is suffficient.

4 hours ago, Georgealbert said:

Bringing smaller businesses into digital payments

The scheme is based on four elements: payment innovation; information from Visa's global VisaNet network; partnerships across the tourism sector; and increasing the number of merchants able to accept digital payments.

Visa has already enrolled more than 50 merchants in Bangkok's historic Song Wat riverside district. It aims to extend digital-payment acceptance to 56,000 small businesses nationwide.

Visa to start harvesting the revenues of small business which can least afford the transaction costs. Why would a business go to credit cards when locally PromptPay with a QR code works and I believe has no transaction charges in most cases or minimal transaction charges.j

From Grok AI:
Examples of common U.S. Visa interchange rates (effective as of April 2026 updates; these are reimbursement fees to issuers):

(usa.visa.com)

• Retail credit (standard in-person): Often around 1.43%–2.30% + $0.10.

• Supermarket: Lower, e.g., 1.15%–2.00% + $0.05–$0.07.

• Rewards/Signature cards: Higher, e.g., up to 2.10%–2.60% + $0.10.

• Small-ticket: Often 1.90%–2.20% (with minimums like $0.04).

• Debit (regulated/PIN): Much lower, e.g., 0.05% + $0.21 (capped in some cases).

• Card-not-present (e-commerce): Higher, e.g., 1.65%–1.90% + $0.10–$0.25 or more.

Why would a small retailer want to go with a model that skims more money off the top, ie, Visa?

3 minutes ago, connda said:

Visa to start harvesting the revenues of small business which can least afford the transaction costs. Why would a business go to credit cards when locally PromptPay with a QR code works and I believe has no transaction charges in most cases or minimal transaction charges.j

Why would a small retailer want to go with a model that skims more money off the top, ie, Visa?

Per the OP, the program is aimed at temporary travelers and,in theory, they would be more prone to shopping with smaller entities than if they had to use cash.

The scheme is based on four elements: payment innovation; information from Visa's global VisaNet network; partnerships across the tourism sector; and increasing the number of merchants able to accept digital payments.

For expats and retirees, it's probably cheaper and easier to use PromptPay. Pretty much everywhere here. Just scan and go.

I send my monthly pension via Transferwise, then use my phone to pay.

I often see signs in shops and restaurants saying htere will be a 3% surcharge for credit cards. These US card companies will likely all be taking a cut for these new schemes, and collecting, collating, and exchanging even more personal information.

Also trying to get in before China's payment systems take over Asia.

52 minutes ago, BangkokHank said:

These things always start out as being for the conveninece of the people. For now, cash is still accepted. But the next (obvious) step is for them to say, "This works so well, we don't need to bother with cash anymore." Since IKEA at Mega BangNa stopped accepting cash last year, I have stopped buying from them. How can it even be legal not to accept a country's currency at a shop? I will resist for as long as I can.

In Thailand it will be impossible to get rid of cash.. Almost everything is cash and yes, digital payments are accepted, but the daily wages is all cash, salaries a lot cash, markets almost all cash...So probably start first to pay everything on bankaccounts, and/or change to monthly salaries and than after a decade or so when everything is going smooth they can start to think to get rid of cash, but I think Thailand first want to get rid of cash and than find out how much problems it gives.. In Europe I know they are also working on less or no cash anymore, but it goes slowly

Yes slowly boil the frog and it won't jump out of the pot...they use the same method to enslave everyone in a digital dystopian panopticon.

From the OP:

Visa has previously run Destinations programmes at city level elsewhere. Thailand is the first market in Asia Pacific to adopt it, and the first country globally to roll it out across an entire nation.

So perhaps they have some realistic data from elsewhere as to just how much this improves the lot of the smaller entity that signs up with VISA through this program.

From the OP:

Visa has already enrolled more than 50 merchants in Bangkok's historic Song Wat riverside district.

From Gemini:

Song Wat is a historic riverside district in Bangkok where Sino-Thai heritage meets a trendy creative scene. Once a vital trading hub for rice and spices, its century-old shophouses now house independent boutiques, art spaces, and riverside cafes.

NB Those 50 merchants would seem to have a high-end clientele.

This sums up the situation, as far as I'm concerned:

Edited July 20Jul 20 by BangkokHank

On 7/18/2026 at 11:30 PM, ikke1959 said:

Visa can be expensive for the shopkeeper/business.. It is not for free, and sometimes even the receiving business/shop will let the cardholder pay for the costs.

And it leaves tourists wide open to the international scam of charging customers in their own currency (I forget the name of it) which many would innocently opt for, not knowing that the exchange rate is appallingly bad.

Edited July 20Jul 20 by SunsetT

We're reinventing the wheel because in most major tourist centers, you can already settle your business transactions using a multitude of different digital payment systems. In fact, Visa is trying to secure a kind of monopoly on financial transactions with the complicity of the Thai authorities. Follow the trail of the brown envelopes. In Pattaya, you can already pay in most established businesses with just your bank card. Outside of tourist centers, I don't see Somchai, with its Mom Pop Shop, going digital anytime soon. Besides, it doesn't interest a company of Visa's size.

In conclusion, this operation aims to give Visa a greater advantage over its competitors thanks to the intervention of the authorities.

This digital money scheme is beyond nuts.... just how hard is it to carry some bills in you wallet? I've done informal checks & often takes 3+ time longer to do transaction than handing over the cash.

Just yesterday at 7/11 some Thai guy bought bottle of M150 with QR... really?

Most promoters hope we ignore the massive amount of free marketing data reaped by Visa et al... what they buy, when they buy, where they buy, if one purchase coincides with another, where the buyer is, etc etc

At least in Bangkok, the businesses signing up for this program are more likely trying to attract persons staying at the Mandarin Oriental, not Khao San Mansion.