MyCash Online
Team size: 10 staff, including two co-founders. Funding stage: RM1.3mil raised in an equity crowdfunding campaign through PitchIn’s crowdfunding platform.
WHILE having a credit card and a bank account is a common convenience for most Malaysians, for foreign workers such services are still a luxury. MyCash Online, which bills itself as a marketplace for migrants, gives the unbanked (those without bank accounts) access to essential services like making remittances, paying bills, topping up phone credit and buying bus or plane tickets.
CEO Mehedi Hasan Sumon said while some of these services are available offline, there are additional issues such as extra fees for the middlemen and the danger of having to carry a lot of cash.
“Without a bank account, he or she (migrant) cannot visit the airline’s website to buy tickets directly and cheaply, he needs to go to a travel agent. This makes it unnecessarily difficult for the person to travel home,” said Mehedi.
The team’s experience working with migrant workers also revealed that many who worked in remote areas like oilpalm plantations, construction sites or up in Cameron Highlands plantations would resort to illegal channels to send money home and make payments, often at the risk of being cheated.
“Our primary goal is to provide financial independence. By letting them make better, safer choices it also makes them more financially literate,” he said.
Though MyCash Online does not have a remittance license, it works with several remittance partners to facilitate transactions legally.
The service works by having users buy MyCash Online points through “mobile sales personnel” in mom and pop shops and convenience stores.
If they had a bank account, but no credit card, they could still use JomPay to purchase points which could in turn be used to buy plane tickets and other credit reliant services.
In line with keeping the users’ interest on the forefront, MyCash Online does not charge the user any fees, instead taking a cut from its service partners.
For the convenience of the users, the service is available in many languages, including Bahasa Malaysia, Bengali, Nepali, Hindi, Indonesian and English.
The idea seemed to strike a chord. Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd, which led the equity crowdfunding round, said the company’s potential laid in how it addressed the needs of the migrants, with 90% of the three million plus migrants in Malaysia not having access to banks or financial institutions.
Since the ECF round last June, MyCash Online had also massively expanded its mobile sales personnel, from fewer than 200 to over 800 people.
Compared to its first year of operation in 2016, MyCash Online’s monthly transactions has grown from RM500,000 a month to more than RM2mil a month and now serves 80,000 customers.