The Society of Malaysia

The society of Malaysia is also influenced by Financial Technology (FinTech). According to a survey – “A survey of FinTech in Malaysia” which conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in 2016, it shows that 82% of Malaysian Financial Institutions (FIs) see FinTech as a threat to their business. This shows that there is a significant majority of our Malaysia FI respondents are concerning about the threat that may affect their business because of FinTech. The main concerns of these Malaysian FIs include regulatory uncertainty, pressure on margins as well as information technology security.
However, in 2017, some Malaysian FIs have started to make their way into FinTech. For instance, Malaysia Banking Berhad (Maybank), the largest bank in Malaysia by market capitalization has brought back the third installation of its fintech program. It aims to find the brightest talents who have the most promising ideas in FinTech. The selected team would have the chance to access to unique partnership opportunities with Maybank and ultimately the suggested partnerships with the bank can involve any of Maybank’s business segments and entities operating from any of the regional location across Asia.
Similar case to Hong Leong Bank, the company has also introduced its HLB Launchpad in March 2017 which is a three-month mentorship and development programme. This programme is also mainly to target at nurturing the next generation of promising Malaysia technology and FinTech start-ups. This programme gives five startups the opportunity to receive mentorship from bank’s senior management as well as training by experts. Each startup will receive RM25, 000 of allowance to enhance their product or service offerings. One team will be selected out of the five startups and will be considered for an equity investment of up to RM1million.

These companies are trying to look for talent and also attempts to attract candidates from other fields. These gave chances to Malaysians who would like to take part in the programme and even those without Information Technology backgrounds are also attracted to the given opportunities.
Although there are opportunities causes by FinTech, there will also have threats for Malaysian. As majority of the Malaysian FIs are going with FinTech and replacing traditional banking system with online and mobile banking services, this could cause the company to eliminate the need for physical presence when performing services and end up closing some of their branches. The closure of branches would force the company to cut down some of their workforce and this causes some Malaysian who works in financial institution to lose their job especially those with lack of experience and those staying in their comfort zone. Not only that, some company would also prefer to have candidates with strong technology skills.
On the other hand, FinTech also influences customer perception on financial services. Customer would expect that their banking transaction can be done online through mobile devices which are more efficient and less time consuming. As a result, most of the Malaysian FIs now have created their own online banking system as well as their own mobile app in order to make used of FinTech as well to improve customer convenience when using the services. FinTech companies in Malaysia not only benefits consumers but also merchants. As an example, AppPay Sdn Bhd, a Malaysian company that comes out with “AppPay” mobile app helps business to connect to their customers.
This app enables merchants to promote their product to their customers and reward their customers via app campaigns. Customers can also make payment whether through prepaid credit basis or cash rebate basis.
With FinTech, Malaysian can now make comparison for various financial and consumer products such as credit cards, fixed deposit, insurance policies, loans, and broadband through iMoney.my. iMoney.my is a financial comparison website that do not charge any fees from their users. This website brings benefits for those who wants to save time and make better financial decision.
To sum up, FinTech do brings more advantages to the society compare to the disadvantages.