Credit Cards Make Headway in Myanmar, But Tourists Still Need Cash
Skift Take
Even where credit card machines are present, there is no guarantee that they'll work. The seemingly antiquated method of travel payments is one of the more evident examples of how unprepared Myanmar is groping to deal with an influx of visitors.
A year ago, Myanmar had no automated teller machines and not a single hotel or restaurant able to swipe the credit cards proffered by throngs of foreigners arriving in the newly opened country, who instead had to bring crisp U.S. dollars to pay for everything in cash.
It has come a long way since: 2,500 credit- and debit-card machines, known as point-of-sale terminals, and 450 ATMs including at least three at the gates of Yangon’s Shwedagon Pagoda, according to Kanbawza Bank Ltd., known as KBZ, the country’s largest privately owned bank.
“The absolute need to carry bags of cash is declining,” said Matt Davies, the International Monetary Fund’s mission chief to Myanmar, who first traveled to the country from Washington in November before there were any such machines, and said he still can’t fully rely on plastic. “It takes time for practices to change. Myanmar remains a cash economy and will continue to be a cash economy for some time.”
Not if Visa Inc. and Mast
