Mobile Payment Systems in Malaysia: Its potentials and consumers’ adoption strategies

Mobile payment was first introduced in Malaysia by TeleMoney at the end of year 2001. In February 2005, another mobile payment service company, namely Mobile Money International Sdn.Bhd enters the market. Recently, with collaboration of Nokia, Visa & Maybank, and Malaysia’s Touch ‘n Go card Maxis launched the ‘World's first contactless mobile payment system’. It is as convenience as we never expected where transactions can be done by only key in numbers.

Potential

However, a lately Bank Negara Malaysia’s statistic shows that mobile banking usage is still low as compared to other e-payments (Figure 1). One of the reasons is there are other alternatives available conveniently i.e. ATM and internet banking. ATM machines are available around and can be reached conveniently. ATM also provides MEPS enable withdrawal and transfer between different banks. Internet banking on the other hand provides more services than mobile payment with the same charges such as checking statement promptly after fund transfer and online share application that cannot be apply through mobile payment. Moreover, the promotion on using mobile payment in Malaysia is not ‘hot’ enough to create awareness among Malaysian. In a nutshell, loads of efforts and collaboration between government, banks and merchants will be needed to increase the application of mobile payment among Malaysian due to high competitiveness with various e-payments. If not mobile payment merchant will definitely meet their draw back.

Figure 1 : statistic from Bank Negara Malaysia (source : payment system policy department, BNM)

Adoption strategies

Some of the widely adoption of mobile payment in Malaysia are:

• top up - reload airtime such as iTalk, Digi, or Celcom.
  
• pay bills - pays such as utilities bills, PTPTN loan, insurance bill, or Majlis Perbandaran.
  
• remit money overseas - such as to Indonesia, mostly use by foreign workers.
  
• pay friends - pay to friend through key-in their mobile phone number or bank transfer.
  
• pay merchants - applied when buying from stores.

Illustrations...


A customer using mobile to purchase a meal from a fast food outlet.







using Nokia 6212 for touch 'n go

















References:

http://mis-asia.com/news/articles/worlds-first-contactless-mobile-payment-system-launches-in-malaysia
http://www.fsa.go.jp/frtc/kenkyu/event/20090331/04-4.pdf
http://www.mobile-money.com/aboutus.htm
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/communications/0,39044192,39001884,00.htm