APEC Advances Digitization of the APEC Business Travel Card

Officials from APEC member economies break new ground in digitizing the APEC Business Travel Card scheme, seeking to modernize the process and make it easier for cardholders in the region to travel with the development of a mobile application.

The APEC Business Travel Card (ABTC) scheme facilitates short-term business travel within the APEC economies by streamlining the entry process at ports of entry within the region. Approved applicants are issued with a card that serves as the entry authority to fully participating economies.

“We continuously seek to improve the system and make it easier and more secure for cardholders to travel around the region,” said Kimberlee Stamatis, Convenor of the APEC Business Mobility Group who oversees the scheme.

The mobile application will include security features such as user verification, the use of watermarks and disabling of screenshots within the mobile application to ensure authenticity of the cardholder.

“Additional security features for the mobile application further hinder fraudulent replication and misuse, and protect the personal details of APEC Business Travel Card holders,” she added.

Additionally, the mobile application will provide cardholders and airport officers real-time information on the status of the travel card. Cached information will also be accessible for a period, in the event that the holder is not able to go online while they are traveling.

“The service will be offered to new applicants from fully participating economies, and we are exploring ways to enable existing cardholders to request the mobile application when they apply for a card renewal, which is required every five years,” Stamatis explained.

Further discussions are underway to ensure that the mobile application caters to the needs of both cardholders and airport officials. The APEC Business Mobility Group will work on the pilot version of the application with the expectation to launch it in November 2020, during APEC Economic Leaders’ Week in Malaysia.

Depending on member economies’ preference for either the mobile application or physical card, the service is expected to be ready for use in early 2021.

Nineteen APEC economies are fully participating members to the ABTC scheme: Australia; Brunei Darussalam; Chile; China; Hong Kong, China; Indonesia; Japan; Korea; Malaysia; Mexico; New Zealand; Papua New Guinea; Peru; the Philippines; the Russian Federation; Singapore; Chinese Taipei; Thailand; and Viet Nam. Canada and the United States are transitional members.

Transitional members’ cardholders will not be able to use the mobile application, however, their existing processes will remain unchanged.

The APEC Business Travel Card scheme reduces travel costs between APEC economies by 38 percent. Businesses pay 27 percent less in application fees and 52 percent less in immigration processing.

For more:

Information on application process and eligibility criteria, please visit the APEC Business Travel Card page.

The complete First APEC Senior Officials’ Meeting and Related Meetings schedule in Putrajaya from 3-22 February can be viewed here.