Foreign tourists can convert USDT and USDC into baht in real time and pay at PromptPay merchants across Thailand through a digital wallet service now operating under a regulatory sandbox.
WORPT, a digital wallet service that allows foreign tourists visiting Thailand to instantly convert their stablecoins into the local currency, the Thai baht (THB), and make payments through the country’s payment network, has officially launched. The service began operating after being approved as part of the Tourist DigiPay regulatory sandbox program overseen by Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
WORPT was jointly developed by Waan Exchange, a locally licensed cryptocurrency exchange, and Wipay, a fintech payment-solutions company. After depositing Tether (USDT) or USD Coin (USDC) into a WORPT wallet and converting it into baht at the real-time exchange rate, tourists can make instant scan-to-pay transactions through Thai QR PromptPay, the national standard quick-payment network widely used at shops, restaurants and hotels across Thailand. Merchants receive settlement in baht, just as with ordinary payments, without having to accept cryptocurrency directly or bear price-volatility risk.
Key partners in the project include global stablecoin issuer Tether, global payments network Visa and Thailand’s major retail conglomerate The Mall Group. Following support for QR payments, WORPT plans to introduce a prepaid physical and virtual Visa card service, the WORPT Visa Prepaid Card, for online shopping and payments at overseas physical terminals in stages. The company plans to hold an official launch event in November and expand the ecosystem.
The project is being viewed as the first case in which state-led real-time payment infrastructure and private-sector stablecoin liquidity have been directly combined within an institutional regulatory sandbox. As users can handle small everyday payments through a mobile app without the complicated process of opening a local bank account or high currency-exchange fees, attention is focused on its potential impact on the tourism industry and the pace at which cryptocurrency is adopted for real-world payments.