PayNet charts the course for e-payments in 2019

• e-Payments on the uptrend for Malaysia in 2019
• Following launch of DuitNow there will more payment services to come

THE year 2018 was an incredibly important year for electronic payments or e-payments in short, as innovations and general interest in modernising the payment ecosystem in Malaysia really took off.

Entering 2019 with this insight, Payments Network Malaysia Sdn Bhd (PayNet) group chief executive officer Peter Schiesser believes that this upward moment for e-payments is not going to slow down anytime soon.

“e-Payments are starting to explode in popularity right now. Like most technological things, adoption is in the form of an S-curve and we are on the rise right now,” said Schiesser during a recent media briefing with ACI Worldwide.

“Just around e-payments, you find bank account transfers and bill payments all continuing to see a healthy growth rate and that will continue to grow. Generally, we are in the growth cycle now and it will continue to grow for quite a few years to come,” he added.

ACI Worldwide’s managing director for Asia Leslie Choo echoed Schiesser’s opinion saying that 2019 will be a transformative year for the payments industry in Malaysia as there is a growing appetite for cashless transactions. “The emergence of new solutions will change the way people transfer and exchange money,” he said.

PayNet, a national payment network and central infrastructure provider, launched DuitNow a service that allows instant credit transfer with a national addressing database that links mobile numbers and national ID numbers to account numbers in December 2018. The service had implemented Malaysia’s Real-Time Retail Payments Platform (RPP) using ACI’s UP Real-Time Payments solution.

Schiesser stressed the need to migrate from paper-based instruments such as cash and cheques to e-payments as it will help raise Malaysia’s competitiveness and efficiency.

“Having the right infrastructure is needed to keep up with technology and functionality being offered in other parts of the world. If we are not competitive in the ways we allow businesses to operate we will find ourselves falling behind,” he cautioned.

The launch of DuitNow is seen by Schiesser as an important milestone in PayNet’s multi-year initiative to modernise Malaysia’s retail payment platform for greater speed, agility and flexibility. PayNet and ACI are focused on the progressive introduction of new payment services which includes QR Payments.

Commenting on the current crowded state of the e-wallet scene, he is of the opinion that interconnectivity and the use of a standard central infrastructure are critical. He even suggested that there may be a time where, if an e-wallet grows to a certain size, they would be compelled to connect to a central infrastructure. This could result in different e-wallet players scanning each other’s QR codes but are still able to make payments.

He also spoke of PayNet’s vision of making payments blend seamlessly into the background. An example would be of a ride-hailing order where a customer can just enter and exit the vehicle with the payment happening automatically in the background.

A similar use case could also be applied to online payments where a basket of goods can be simply checked out and payments are set to occur.

Even in the realm of billing, PayNet and ACI are focused on new payment services like Request-to-Pay where it allows for trusted entities like the power company to accept payments automatically by a user for a regular monthly transaction.

Choo ended by saying that ACI is proud to partner with PayNet to address the changing needs of the Malaysian payment ecosystem, positioning the country as a regional and global payments leader as the trend from cash-based transactions to cashless societies gathers pace.