Digital Payments & Fintech - Brunei

BDCB undertakes approval, oversight and supervision of payment systems, payment service providers and payment instruments under s.54(1) of the BDCB Order, 2010, operationalised through Notice No. PSO/N-1/2020/1 on Requirements for Payment Systems.

Operating a payment system without BDCB approval is unlawful and penalised. Payment system operators must have a place of business/registered office in Brunei, base capital of BND100,000, and lodge a bankers' guarantee of at least BND50,000 before commencing business.

BDCB separately licenses, supervises and regulates money services businesses (money remittance and money changing) under its own licensing criteria, and publishes a public list of licensees.

BDCB operates the National Payment and Settlement Systems (RTGS, ACH, CSD). 'tarus', Brunei's first instant-payment system, is run by National Digital Payments Network Sdn Bhd (ndpx) as a BDCB-Approved Payment System Operator, enabling instant inter-bank/e-wallet transfers (Phase 1 from Q4 2024).

BDCB issued a Notice on Adoption of a National QR Code Standard to govern QR payments, with cross-border QR interoperability (ASEAN QR) being pursued via the Digital Payment Hub.

A FinTech Regulatory Sandbox has operated since 27 February 2017 for supervised testing. However, there is no dedicated in-force BNPL/consumer-credit framework (Brunei is described as still developing one), and open-banking-style access is emerging only through the Digital Payment Hub's single-connection model rather than a statutory open-banking regime.