Malaysia moving towards cashless society
KUALA LUMPUR: To embrace the digital economy, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) has taken various step to enhance the epayment platform, hence moving the country towards a cashless society. Ibrahim said.
Since 2009, the industry has invested RM893 million to enhance the e-payment infrastructure and will invest a further RM346 million to expand the Point-of-Sale ( POS) terminal network and RM40 million to develop the realtime retail payment platform.
Muhammad also said that the payment technology had become more advanced, scalable and low cost, which benefits merchants directly, as their operations cost was lowered by the using Quick Response (QR Code).
“Most Malaysians are likely to carry both a debit card and mobile phones, and as of now, there are 45.4 million debit cards and 42.8 million mobile phone subscriptions. We need to take advantage of and optimise this medium,” he added.
To encourage the use of the QR code payment, BNM has issued an Interoperable Credit Transfer Framework (ICTF).
“For the first time in our history, customers of banks and nonbanks will soon be able to transfer funds across the network by just referring to the mobile phone number, identification number or QR code,” he said.
The ICTF will also enhance customer protection and confidence in the use of the credit transfer service. — Bernama