Thailand’s National ITMX Boosts Electronic Payment Infrastructure with Huawei

National Interbank Transaction Management and Exchange (National ITMX) — a private company established by the Thai Bankers' Association — is the developer and service provider for Thailand's electronic payment infrastructure, with a total of 33 member banks.

As such, National ITMX facilitates all types of electronic payments and fund transfers across diverse channels, including Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs), Electronic Data Capture (EDC), Over-The-Counter (OTC), and Internet and mobile banking. It also provides a common payment platform across ATMs and mobile and Internet banking.

In addition, the company is in charge of the development of Thailand’s PromptPay system. This is payment infrastructure that's part of the National e-Payment Master Plan that promotes a cashless society, which is itself a part of the government’s Thailand 4.0 initiative. In turn, PromptPay also links Thailand's ATMs to ASEANPay — the initiative to promote cross border payments among the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) — providing a platform for region-wide transactions.

A Triple Challenge: Reliability, Speed, and Adaptability

Setting up national electronic payment infrastructure requires three key elements.

Reliability is, of course, critical, ideally supported by a self-built Data Center Interconnect (DCI) solution for current and future applications and networks.

Speed is of the essence, based on low latency and large bandwidth, with no service interruptions and no downtime.

And adaptability to future-oriented network infrastructure is also vital, with evolution to higher bandwidth made possible, allowing data volumes to increase from Terabytes (TB) to Exabytes (EB), with 1 EB equivalent to 1,000,000 TB.

Huawei Intelligent OptiX Network Solution for Finance

Huawei provided National ITMX with its Intelligent OptiX Network Solution for Finance, based on the latest optical fiber technologies such as Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM).

With a self-built DCI network, the solution ensures Business Continuity (BC) and Disaster Recovery (DR) for data, without loss nor interruption to business. The system runs on two data centers located in different cities, working in active-active or active-passive modes, as well as an off-site data center for DR.

It offers optimal low latency — below 10 μ — and large bandwidth, from 100G up to 800G per lambda (λ). With various interfaces available in one box, high reliability and security are assured. In addition, Huawei's Fiber Doctor function makes it easy to locate fiber faults while the Optical Doctor feature simplifies Operations and Maintenance (O&M).

Real-World Benefits

The solution implemented by Huawei has enhanced National ITMX's experience, rendering it more manageable, controllable, and operable.

The network's high reliability ensures BC and reduces the risk of data loss.

High bandwidth makes O&M a simpler task and anticipates future business expansion.

Low latency optimizes transmission performance.

Real-time responsiveness translates into stronger data processing capabilities and networks.

And the monitoring system efficiently locates fiber faults, greatly assisting network management.