KUALA LUMPUR: Pertama Digital Bhd (PDB) has secured INFOPRO Sdn Bhd (ISB) as consortium partner for the purpose of applying a digital bank licence from Bank Negara Malaysia.
ISB is a long-established banking-as-a-service (BaaS) provider led by its founder Chuah Wan Pin.
The company has been in business for 34 years, serving more than 100 banks across 32 countries, a vast majority located in Southeast Asia and Africa.
PDB director of strategy Saify Akhtar said PDB's digital bank will contribute by enhancing the economic productivity of 875,000 micro small and medium enterprises (MSME), many of whom face challenges accessing financial services today.
"PDB identified ISB as the best core banking system provider for Malaysian digital banks because, in addition to offering cutting edge technology, they are closely in touch with our local landscape, from the underserved customers we are targeting to the regulatory environment, including a full suite of Islamic banking modules for our bank," he said in a statement today.
The consortium intends to handhold customers to boost financial literacy and improve the relationship between Malaysia's financially underserved and their money.
Both parties are finalising the signing of consortium agreements.
To recap, on 24 May 2021, PDB announced Crowdo as a consortium partner for the purpose of applying for a digital bank license.
Crowdo is a SME-focused neobank with an artificial intelligence (AI) powered credit scoring engine specialised for emerging markets in ASEAN.
ISB chief digital officer Chong Eng Kok said after considering the digital banking business plan by PDB, the company identified that this consortium is uniquely positioned to deliver the financial inclusion objectives set out in Bank Negara Malaysia's licensing framework for digital banks.
"As a homegrown Malaysian banking software company, we are proud to dedicate our resources and capabilities to this noble initiative, for the benefit of the Rakyat," he said.
Recently, ISB launched Digibank-in-a-Box with Huawei and TM One, a comprehensive solution that allows the company to build a digital bank in just 30 days using composable banking principles, with local data residency and pre-integrated connectivity.
PDB received overwhelming shareholder approval on 21 August 2020 for its pivot from the textile business to the technology sector.
Through an investment into homegrown govtech company DAPAT Vista (M) Sdn Bhd, PDB is capitalising on global digital acceleration trends and has recently seen increased uptake in the company's digital solutions such as MyPay and eJamin, the world's first smartphone court bail payment solution, now live in courts all over Malaysia.