In April 2025, a familiar tension resurfaced on the global trade stage. The United States, through its 2025 National Trade Estimate (NTE) report, criticized Indonesia’s national QR payment system, QRIS (Quick Response Code Indonesian Standard), and its domestic payment network GPN for allegedly restricting access to foreign firms like Visa and Mastercard. This came at a politically sensitive moment: just as the U.S. announced a 32% reciprocal tariff on Indonesian goods—a move temporarily suspended by the Trump administration for 90 days starting April 9, 2025 (Office of the United States Trade Representative, 2025).

At the center of this trade dispute is a quiet yet transformative success story: Indonesia’s regulator-led push to unify, simplify, and democratize digital payments. While the U.S. frames QRIS as protectionist, many in the Global South see it differently. They see it as sovereignty in code form—a model where innovation doesn’t only emerge from Silicon Valley, but from sovereign policy designed with inclusion, affordability, and national interoperability at its core.

QRIS, launched in 2019 by Bank Indonesia, now boasts over 50 million users and 32 million merchants—92% of whom are MSMEs. Its impact is visible not only in transaction volumes but in the radical reshaping of Indonesia’s informal economy. Through a single interoperable QR standard, QRIS reduced barriers for small vendors, brought millions into the financial system, and enabled digital literacy at scale (Bank Indonesia, 2025; QRIS Interactive, 2025). Features like QRIS TUNTAS and QRIS Antarnegara extend its utility to ATM-like services and cross-border payments with neighboring ASEAN countries (“Riset Sukses QRIS Indonesia”, 2025).

Today, QRIS is accepted not only across Indonesia but also in partner countries including Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Brunei Darussalam, Japan, and South Korea. These regional agreements strengthen QRIS as a payment bridge across Asia, facilitating tourism, trade, and local currency settlements.

In contrast to the U.S. critique, QRIS represents a strategic choice to design for dignity rather than dependence. The lesson here is not anti-global—it is about asserting a model of digital governance where financial infrastructure, when governed wisely, can serve local resilience while remaining open to fair, mutually beneficial cooperation.

In fact, the Indonesian government has consistently expressed openness to global firms—including Visa and Mastercard—being part of the QRIS ecosystem. This reflects a collaborative model that embraces interoperability and innovation, as long as it aligns with the public interest and meets the nation’s inclusive development goals. The QRIS story shows that sovereignty and openness can coexist, and that digital payment systems can be built on principles of both equity and cooperation.

For the Global South, Indonesia’s QRIS success offers five strategic lessons:

1. Lead with Policy, Not Platforms: Innovation doesn’t have to be outsourced. Sovereign institutions can shape markets when they prioritize public interest over private monopolies.
2. Standardize Early to Scale Fast: Mandating one interoperable code simplified adoption, removed friction, and prevented early-stage fragmentation.
3. Subsidize the Small: By waiving merchant fees for low-value transactions, QRIS made itself indispensable to micro-enterprises.
4. Adaptation Is Innovation: QRIS kept evolving, integrating ATM functions, enabling cross-border payments, and responding to real-world behaviors.
5. Sovereignty Is Not Isolation: Building domestic rails doesn’t mean closing doors. It means entering global trade with stronger footing.
6. Data Inclusion Enables Policy Precision: By digitizing informal transactions, QRIS generates more accurate data flows across sectors. This improves transparency, tracks real-time economic activity—especially in the informal sector—and strengthens the foundation for evidence-based policymaking.

This trajectory stands in marked contrast to two other Global South giants: India and China.

In India, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), launched by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), created a real-time payment system that integrates bank accounts across providers. Its success stems from similar government-led standardization, free or minimal transaction fees, and integration into flagship digital initiatives. UPI has become central to India’s financial inclusion drive, particularly among underbanked rural populations (IJFMR, 2025; NPCI, 2025).

Meanwhile in China, QR payment adoption exploded via a different route: commercial super-apps. Alipay and WeChat Pay dominated over 93% of the market by 2019, offering frictionless experiences integrated into social media and e-commerce platforms. However, their dominance led to walled gardens, until government intervention in 2017 required all non-bank QR transactions to be cleared through a centralized clearinghouse known as Wanglian (REI Journal, 2025; Toucanus Blog, 2025).

This comparison reveals not just different models, but different philosophies:

• Indonesia and India: regulator-first, interoperability by design, competition fostered between diverse providers.
• China: market-first, innovation by dominance, regulation applied retroactively to rein in systemic risk.

As financial digitalization accelerates worldwide, the choice is no longer between Silicon Valley or state control. The new frontier lies in hybrid governance models rooted in public interest, where local needs shape global partnerships. QRIS is not perfect, but it proves a crucial point: the Global South can chart its own fintech path—inclusive, interoperable, and sovereign—while still welcoming collaboration.

The key is to ensure that such collaborations are not extractive, but mutual. Interoperability with foreign systems can and should be pursued, as long as it doesn’t compromise local resilience or digital sovereignty. Rather than rejecting international cooperation, Indonesia’s QRIS shows how it can be done on equal terms—answering local priorities first.

For many nations in the Global South, digital public infrastructure like QRIS offers not just a financial tool, but a social mission. It is directly aligned with ESG and SDG narratives—advancing financial inclusion, reducing poverty, and promoting economic equity at the last mile. As such, future cooperation—whether with international firms or multilateral agencies—must serve this broader vision: technology as a lever for dignity, not dependency.

And sometimes, that path starts with a simple square of black-and-white code.