Transactions in Malaysia to be almost ‘cashless’ by 2025 — Nazir

KUALA LUMPUR: Transactions in Malaysia are projected to be almost ‘cashless’ by 2025, given rate of development in today’s technology, coupled with the fierce race to profit from optimising technology in banking, says CIMB Group chairman, Datuk Seri Nazir Razak.

In an article he wrote, titled ‘Thriving in a Disrupted World’, Nazir said, if this projection materialised, automated teller machines would seem as retro as phone booths were today and bank branches would also become a rare sight.

“Robotics and artificial intelligence will have displaced a large percentage of asset managers and credit analysts, and maybe even investment bankers. Peerto-peer interactions among customers themselves will have disintermediated banks in more and more ways.

“Similarly, blockchain and its automated ledger functions, as well as cryptocurrencies, will have proliferated new methods of trade finance and money transfers that bypass banks altogether,” he said.

He said among the biggest threats to banks were giant platform companies and in giving example, he said, China’s two largest platforms, Alibaba and Tencent, had both set up licensed banks to provide consumer loans with near-instant credit decision-making by analysing the massive accumulated customer behavioural data in their possession.

Alibaba’s Alipay has over 520 million users while Tencent’s WeChat is closing in on the onebillion-user mark. —