KUALA LUMPUR: Touch ’n Go card, the leader in micropayments in Malaysia with more than four million transactions a day, is spearheading the government’s push towards a cashless society.
“It’s more than just a mode of payment or a means of putting your cash in prepaid card to pay electronically. The card provides users with a means to perform cashless low value transactions, which is simple and convenient,” said Touch ’n Go Sdn Bhd chief executive officer Syahrunizam Samsudin.
In an exclusive interview, the 43-year-old said most Touch ’n Go cardholders used their cards to pay highway tolls.
First introduced in 1997, there are currently more than 13 million cards (inclusive of MyKad) in circulation in Malaysia, and many Malaysians are known to have at least one Touch ’n Go card.
“We plan to enable cashless payment beyond toll highways and public transportation by expanding the number of participating merchants and partners in other segments, such as retail,” said Syahrunizam, who was appointed CEO in September last year.
Touch ’n Go’s retail payment sector has more than 100 merchants with a network of over 2,000 outlets.
“Our retail network has grown significantly in the last two years with the acquisition of key merchants such as Watsons, Tesco, KK Super Mart, Baskin-Robbins and many more. We have quite a comprehensive range of products and services to serve the needs of customers,” he said.
Syahrunizam added that Touch ’n Go was currently in talks with Caring Pharmacy and other potential partners to use the card as a mode of payment.
Touch ’n Go is a private limited company whose shareholders are CIMB Group Holdings Bhd, MTD Capital Bhd and PLUS Expressways Bhd.
Syahrunizam, who also founded project advisory services company SBS Technology Solutions, said Touch ’n Go was in the midst of building its loyalty programme, which would be in the form of a mobile application.
“We expect to launch it by the third quarter of this year. The app will allow users to experience the redemption of loyalty points with our merchants,” he added.
The company’s merchant partners include Guardian, Mydin, MyNews.com, 7-Eleven and petrol stations such as Shell and Petronas.
As of last month, it has a total of 9,142 active reload channels in the country.
Syahrunizam said customers could also reload their cards at Touch ’n Go self-service kiosks, ATMs (automated teller machines) and CDMs (cash deposit machines).
“Best of all, it saves the hassle of having to reload your card manually with auto-reload products such as the Zing Card, our auto-reload fleet card for the business and corporate segments,” he said.
The Touch ’n Go Zing card was awarded the “Most Innovative Prepaid Card Award” by the European Financial Management and Marketing Association in 2005.
In terms of products and services innovation, Syahrunizam said Touch ’n Go also offered e-statement service, which could be subscribed for free.
“We have hundreds of thousands of users who subscribe to our e-statement service in order to monitor their usage and for business travel claim purposes. Companies use the e-statement to monitor the movement of their fleet.”
Syahrunizam said Touch ’n Go was now in discussion with the Land Public Transport Commission and public transport operators to move towards a single payment platform.
“Customers expect seamless journey across multi-modal transportation and Touch ’n Go enables this to happen.”
Moving forward, he said Touch ’n Go was pursuing the next stage of its evolution and had put plans in place to roll out new services, which he was confident would excite customers and the marketplace.
“Unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to divulge the details at this point of time. Stay tuned and watch out for more announcements from us in the near future,” said Syahrunizam.