Last Monday, we organised an e-Wallet webinar led by C-suites from Merchantrade (Rafidz Rasiddi, Chief Strategy Officer) and a publicly listed company, GHL Systems (Sean S Hesh, Group CEO) to share some insights on e-Wallet and their digital payment strategies. Overall, our takeaway from the session was positive. To become a regional leader in digital economy, the government has recently launched the Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint that outlines the strategies and initiatives to be taken in order to achieve the goal. According to the World Economic Forum, the consumer market in ASEAN, which still heavily relies on cash transactions, is expected to reach USD4 trillion by 2030 mainly driven by growth in tech-savvy working middle-class population from three emerging ASEAN countries, namely, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. As a result, the growth trajectory of e-Wallet is bright which will also be boosted by government incentives such as the launching of eBelia, ePenjana and eTunai initiatives, e-Wallet players offering users cashbacks and promotions, ease of use and constant increase in functionality of e-Wallet platforms. As for the individual companies, Merchantrade is a leader in money remittance servicing mainly the underserved migrant workers in Malaysia whereas GHL Systems provides payment solutions to businesses across ASEAN.

The year 2020 had spurred the adoption of e-Wallets amongst Malaysians as a combination of government financial incentives and COVID-19 lockdown restrictions that encouraged more Malaysians to forgo cash for cashless transactions making e-Wallets the preferred payment method. With that said, we organised an e-Wallet webinar led by C-suites from Merchantrade (Rafidz Rasiddi, Chief Strategy Officer) and a publicly listed company, GHL Systems (Sean S Hesh, Group CEO) to share some insights on e-Wallet and their digital payment strategies to the audience. The webinar began with Rafidz Rasiddi sharing a holistic view on Menchantrade’s business initiatives followed by Dennis Saw and Sean S Hesh introducing GHL Systems to the audience. Below are our key highlights.

Accelerating the… Recently, the government launched the Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint to expedite the development of Malaysia’s digital economy in order for Malaysia to become a regional leader in digital economy. As such, the blueprint includes strategies on accelerating digital payment in Malaysia; for instance, the first thrust of the blueprint requires all federal and state level agencies to offer digital payment services (e.g. bank transfers, card payment, e-Wallet) by 2022 making it a preferred method of transaction.

Source: Kenanga Research - 7 Apr 2021