KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 31): The financial technology associations for Thailand and Hungary have signed a bilateral memorandum of understanding (MOU) to support the introduction of blockchain technology to their respective financial sectors.

Citing a Facebook post by the Embassy of Hungary in Bangkok, crypto industry news portal Cointelegraph on Monday (Oct 31) said the MOU, signed by the Thai Fintech Association (TFA) and the Hungarian Blockchain Coalition on Oct 25, will see the two associations “share experiences, best practices and explore areas potentially beneficial for direct cooperation”.

Meanwhile, the Bangkok Post on Oct 29 quoted TFA president Chonladet Khemarattana as saying that e-commerce, mobile payments, and digital currencies are growing rapidly in Thailand and that international cooperation is needed to further develop local financial technology.

He also claimed 20% of the world’s crypto holders are in Thailand, the country placed eighth on the 2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index released in September by analytics firm Chainalysis and crypto payments company TripleA estimates almost 6.5% of the population own cryptocurrency.

The Hungarian Blockchain Coalition was jointly created by the country’s Ministry of Innovation and Technology and the National Data and Economy Knowledge Centre in March 2022, while the Thai Fintech Association is a non-profit founded in 2016 with the aim of representing the local financial technology industry including cryptocurrency exchanges.

The pact comes as Thailand’s central bank, along with some of the country’s commercial banks, was involved in the testing of a cross-border wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) transaction platform using distributed ledger technology in September.