The rise of the e-wallet in Malaysia

In the last few years, Malaysia has become a haven for e-wallets, with new versions cropping up nearly every other month.

There are now more than 40 digital wallet systems active in the country to date. The explosive development experienced by e-wallets is in line with Bank Negara's target of turning Malaysia into a cashless nation by 2020, with a mobile-based payment blueprint being developed by the central bank. Each digital wallet comes with its collection of advantages and discounts for both merchants and customers to benefit from at the end of the day.

Here are a few reasons why your organization should be making the switch to empowerment via a digital wallet.

Foreign remittance capabilities

Digital payments are probably disrupting every major industry for a good reason, they are among the strongest core components of global reach moving forward. They've been a pillar for sustaining economies throughout the pandemic and helping people around the world to make urgent transactions. Do you have foreign employees that urgently need help with their monthly transactions? E-wallets can not only incorporate E-Remittance capabilities, but they can optimize salary management and many other components for integration, ranging from mobile reloads and basic needs payments to insurance service assistance

Greater organizational flexibility

Like most other digital solutions, the e-wallet can add a healthy dose of flexibility to a company that wants to move forward. Far too often, an organization's various infrastructures are outdated and inefficient, whether it's the HR and admin systems in place or the financial systems that are used to determine and issue invoices.

For this reason, a digital wallet's flexibility is a great addition to a company's arsenal, seeing that they are often built on applications and developed to offer integration for different business requirements. Companies can add, improve, or trim down functionality as they move along, giving their employees a greater level of efficiency, convenience, and personalization.

Using it as a payroll solution

As part of creating a better digital employee experience, digital wallets can also be hugely effective in enabling a more cohesive, cooperative, and seamless digital workplace for your team. As it stands today, most employees are already relying heavily on mobile phones and portable devices for daily and weekly work or home activities. In this way, employers could accommodate their teams and enhance the employee experience with digital wallet solutions that offer not just payroll capabilities, but opportunities for employee engagement in various ways.

The digital wallet is in fact well-positioned to take on and even reinvent older payroll systems or financial wellbeing initiatives. A long list of guidance features, tools, and speed, equipping employees with a better sense of their financial wellbeing. Payroll processes established via e-wallets are also seamless and fast in the way an organization handles paying out a workforce.

Contactless technology capabilities

As an employer, safety and relevance are top priorities for an organization’s future sustainability. The rise of the COVID-19 pandemic has given way to many new norms and innovative solutions to match the urgent demand for contactless transactions. Fortunately, most e-wallets are designed with features to make the transition towards contactless finance more achievable for business owners, foreign workers, and the general public.

Needless to say, more and more people are beginning to realize the need to deploy different technologies that embrace digital wallets. Through contactless techniques such as near-field communication (NFC) or QR-code, retail customers can make in-store purchases using mobile wallets.

NFC is a contactless remote technology that works within a near distance (up to 10 cm) and provides people with safe payment between POS devices and smartphones. The Quick Response code is short for QR code and is very comparable to a barcode. The user can easily scan the QR code through the camera on a smartphone that identifies the barcode, and a relevant application or website opens.

Digital payments and e-wallets can now be found quite commonly in use in Malaysia. Given the demand for contactless transactions and the convenience it provides, offering NFC and QR payment should be a must-have wallet feature.

It drives employee engagement

E-wallets can also help to maintain and grow employee engagement rates, which are essential for building a good culture at work, as well as a motivated workforce. There are various ways in which digital solutions like the e-wallet can improve engagement. For one, users of the wallet could track their finances using an in-built component to the mix. Within the app, the data of all the transactions you make are processed, which helps you to conduct evaluations after each week or month to better manage costs.

For consumers as well as employees, monitoring personal financial health over time is important. People have to keep on top of their cash.

An analytical dashboard enables digital wallet holders, via reports, figures, and diagrams, to view and analyze their financial operations.

Personal finance management provides users with all of the details they need to make informed financial choices across all their balances, expenses, credit cards, and profits, with a clear view of when, how, and where they spend and receive their money.

Proper security measures

There’s nothing more sacred to company finances than solid security structures. This is one of the strengths of e-wallets. All the information that users have in the app is often encrypted and never submitted to third-party sources. When you log on to an e-wallet, payment information is preserved in virtually all instances, whether it’s in an online marketplace or an office-based network. Also, the transactions (fingerprint, password) must be checked by you and the digital card wallet is furthermore secured by the security system of your smartphone (Face ID, fingerprints, passwords). It means that it will be hard to get access to your money if someone steals or finds your mobile (unlike in the event of losing your wallet with all the cards or money).

E-wallets also provide the benefit of digitalizing money, indicating that payments made to you are safe while accelerating cash register transactions. Such transactions can be done with just a tap now, no more waiting for buyers fishing for actual cash at the counter. Various studies have shown that consumers prefer companies that have embraced mobile payments effectively, as it typically implies more shopping convenience.

In addition, the digitalization of payments makes handling your business even simpler, as many e-wallets offer a simple summary of your finances for simpler bookkeeping. In addition to the added protection inside the app to safeguard your cash if you lose your device, the tracking feature also lowers the risk for fraudulent transactions.

Rewards and incentives

Gamification and engagement both play a big role in HR departments. Organizations are encouraged to consistently apply incentivized initiatives to help encourage and motivate employees.

To promote the use of their apps, a few digital wallet services provide users with extra incentives and exclusive deals. It means that you not only get to pay more quickly and conveniently for your transactions but also get enjoyable benefits. Among marketers or sales teams, the impact of coupons and incentives is well-known. Mobile wallets are great settings in which to offer these benefits to deal-seeking users in a relevant context.

Therefore, features that allow the easy development and managing of coupons, discounts, vouchers, loyalty points, etc. are essential for a digital wallet solution. Moreover, they can help your mobile wallet application stand out in the market.

EVOLET is a digital wallet app for migrant workers.

Learn more at https://evolet.io/