Page 390 - Westport Guide To Malaysia

382 USEFUL INFORMATION
Investment Services
A wide range of investment and wealth management services are offered in Malaysia. Most major
banks offer retail share dealing services and a wide variety of insurers offer investment products. Personal investment advisors and investment planners, whether attached to a company or working independently, are required to be fully trained and licensed.
Fintech
As the world embraces technology-based solutions to provide financial products and services, BNM has continued to encourage innovation in the market by enhancing a FinTech-friendly business environment for innovative financial services to grow. It has put in place the regulations to facilitate various financial-related businesses including banking, insurance, money- broking, capital markets, credit token and Islamic finance to adopt FinTech in their products and services offerings. BNM has also
set up the Regulatory Sandbox Framework to enable the experimentation of FinTech solution in a live environment, subject to appropriate safeguards and regulatory requirements.
Digital banking
Through the usage of agile technology platforms and
data analytics, digital banks are widening
the range of banking products and services targeted towards solving Malaysian consumer pain points, particularly for the unserved and underserved consumer segments. Additional measures are
in place to reduce barriers to entry, whilst allowing the respective banks to observe attendant risks.
As of May 2021, the number of internet banking subscribers was 36.3 million for individuals and 1.7 million for corporate clients, with an overall 116.3% penetration rate. Mobile device banking subscribers stood at 66.8% penetration
rate at the same time. Online banking
transactions rose by 49% to 2.5 billion
transactions from 2019 to 2020 and the total number of e-payments grew 14% to 5.5 billion transactions. E-payments using Quick Response (QR) codes jumped
164% to 773,484 and e-remittance transactions conducted via licensed non-bank remittance service providers
climbed to RM6.6 billion, accounting for 25% of total outward remittances.
Remittance Services
All banks provide remittance services.
There are also 38 non- bank remittance service providers, inclusive of development financial institutions that are licensed to provide remittance services in Malaysia. The list of non- bank remittance providers
DuitNow QR is Malaysia’s national QR solution that allows merchants to accept payments from customers of different participating banks and e-wallets operators using a unified QR code.