KUALA LUMPUR: Merchantrade Asia Sdn Bhd (MASB) and the Construction Labour Exchange Centre Bhd (CLAB) is expecting to serve to 4,000 unbanked foreign workers by the first quarter of 2021 from the current 2,000.
Both MASB and CLAB, which has successfully inked alliance to serve the unbanked community comprising both foreign workers and Malaysians in the construction industry, will continue efforts to facilitate more contractors to pay workers salaries via top-up direct into MASB's Merchantrade Money Visa Prepaid Card.
Merchantrade Asia managing director Ramasamy K Veeran said by having salaries credited into the Merchantrade Money Visa card, foreign workers can send their money to their families back at their home countries digitally on their mobile
devices, hence eliminating the need for contractors to pay salaries in cash.
"This is especially critical now, as the Covid-19 pandemic has restricted the movement of foreign workers to cash out their wages and make payments, in addition to mitigating several other risks such as theft and robbery of cash," he said in a statement today.
MASB started discussions with CLAB on the collaboration back in August 2019, aimed at providing digital salary payments especially to foreign workers in the construction industry.
Through this collaboration, CLAB will facilitate contractors to pay salaries via top-up direct into Merchantrade Money Visa Prepaid Card, which is in line with the government's initiatives in promoting cashless wages and in meeting the aim of the financial flows of the unbanked workers.
Merchantrade Asia is the country's leader in digital money services business operator and e-money issuer whilst CLAB is responsible for bringing and redistributing of foreign workers catering to the needs of organisations and companies in the construction industries.
CLAB chief executive officer Abdul Rafik Abdul Rajis said with over 165 registered companies, coupled with the support from the Home Ministry and Human Resource Ministry to promote the facilitation of cashless wages, the company has met the objective by roping workers in the unbanked segment through this collaboration.
"CLAB would be able to monitor salary transactions, location of workers as well as Social Security Organisation (SOCSO) deductions for foreign workers registered under CLAB," he said.
Merchantrade Money Visa Prepaid card also offers a variety of other services and benefits such as remittances, mobile reloads, online purchases, personal accident insurance coverage with basic plan as low as for RM5 per month, multi lingual application and customer services with eight different languages including English, Malay, Nepali, Indonesian, Bengali, Tamil, Chinese and Burmese and many more directly from the Merchantrade mobile wallet app.
"Merchantrade Money currently holds e-wallet size of up to RM20,000 catering to the needs of everyone to transact digitally, providing convenience in their daily lives", said Ramasamy.