KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is poised to becom a cashless society, thanks to the government's long-term plan, said Merchantrade Asia Sdn Bhd.
Though the on-going initiatives by the government, economists has predicted that the target of being cashless society in the next five years is achievable.
Trends and surveys show rural areas become increasingly urbanised and people, especially the youths, prefer to buy goods and services with e-payments.
Interestingly, market trend also show the older generation are gradually adopting the advantages of e-payment compared to over-the-counter cash exchanges.
Further, the recent Budget 2018 tabled in Parliament last month has cemented the government's efforts to further promote a cashless society economy through effective employment of foreign workers.
With this, beginning 2018, the government and Bank Negara Malaysia will monitor salary payment through local bank accounts for foreign workers, excluding domestic helpers.
In a statement today, Merchantrade Asia said its eRemit is a catalyst for cashless society as it has a ready ecosystem and strong backbone in the e-payment sphere, dominating the Asia Pacific region in foreign workers remittance services.
The eRemit Person to Person (P2P) service was introduced in 2012 and in 2017 Malaysia's first online Business to Business (B2B) non-bank portal was initiated and has garnered strong market presence in the small and medium enterprises (SME).
With the government now encouraging that all foreign workers need to have a bank account, both employers and employees can now use eRemit services to remit money via the online portal or the eRemit app.
The main boost for eRemit would be the capacity and capability to transfer funds to over 220 countries around the world, the largest service network, without the need to bring cash to the bank or to transact via cash deposit machines.
“What gives Merchantrade an edge is our wide network locally and internationally,” says Merchantrade’s founder and managing director Ramasamy K Veeran.
Through strategic partnerships with international wire transfer operators, foreign banks, and other established payment centres, Merchantrade's remittance network spreads across 234,000 pay-out points worldwide.
Merchantrade has been seeing growth through the usage of its remittance services by the SME’s and medium-large corporations and this is mainly due to the reliable service that is provided along with attractive Foreign Exchange rates and low-cost fees hence giving eRemit the upper advantage, allowing a transfer of and up to RM2 million for businesses. P2P transfer is up to RM50,000 per day.
“eRemit has been the leading choice for customers who are also looking for transferring of funds across borders for their loved ones and for parents who have children studying overseas,” he said.
"We believe eRemit will be the forefront in this market for the coming years, as customers who have been using the services are confident in our level of service, the IT infrastructure behind the system and the reliability," he added.
On a global perspective, cashless economies would be helpful to the global economy, and governments would also benefit from cashless transactions as it would allow central control of money supply.
According to news report, Belgium, France, and Canada has over 90 per cent of consumer payments made via cashless modes.
The United Kingdom, Sweden, Australia, Netherlands, and the US also have high rates of consumer payments (80 per cent and over) made via non-cash modes.
Touching on financial technology, Ramasamy said the digital revolution has transformed the way customers access financial products and services and Merchantrade is always ahead of the curve in the FinTech ecosystem.
The eRemit boasted high-volume transactions and has received global recognition and accolades, especially in eyes of the FinTech industry.
eRemit has bagged the prestigious Florin Award, as voted by the FinTech Community, in the Best Remittance Breakthrough Transfer category, edging out internationally renowned remittance companies in the region.
More recently, Merchantrade has tied up with BonusLink, so their eight million members can obtain points every time they use eRemit.
The partnership with BonusLink is expected to further drive Merchantrade's growth with an estimated RM1 billion value in eRemit transactions for 2018 alone.
For 2017, Merchantrade is expected to hit RM 800 Million value in both P2P & B2B transactions.
Aside from eRemit, Merchantrade owns and operates eForex, an online foreign exchange currency is also another game-changing app to meet the growing number of tech savvy customers, inbound and outbound travelers.