About 1,000 traders at the Selangor Ramadan Festival 2023, known as FESTIRA’23, were due to start taking payments a different way: scan a code, not count notes. On March 3, 2023, MBSB Bank Berhad and PKNS Real Estate Sdn Bhd (PREC) signed a memorandum of understanding at the atrium of SACC Mall in Shah Alam to bring real-time retail payments to small traders.
The two men who signed were Datuk Nor Azam M Taib, group chief executive of MBSB Bank, and Fakru Radzi Ab Ghani, chief executive of PREC. The arrangement covers traders in PREC-owned buildings: SACC Mall, the PKNS Complex in Shah Alam and the PKNS Complex in Bangi.
What traders get
The payments run on the real-time retail payment platform managed by Payment Network Malaysia (PayNet), which includes the DuitNowQR code that customers can use through mobile banking apps and e-wallets. Nor Azam said cashless sales cut operating costs and time and make a trader’s money management more efficient. They also work around the clock, he said, because the platform runs 24 hours.
He argued that going digital would help the premises draw more shoppers, since paying by phone is easier, safer and what customers now prefer. MBSB Bank also plans promotional campaigns at PREC buildings because of their strategic locations.
The bank said it would give attention to the small business owners themselves too, through short and medium-term micro-financing matched to what each business needs. Utusan Malaysia reported Nor Azam as saying the assessment would be simpler but still careful, and based on a trader’s own transaction data.
Starting with the festival
Fakru Radzi said the collaboration would begin at FESTIRA’23, with traders opening MBSB Bank accounts and using digital banking in their sales. “As a start, the main target of this collaboration is the traders involved with FESTIRA’23,” he said in comments reported in Malay by Utusan Malaysia and Kosmo.
The festival was due to open on March 5, 2023, ahead of Ramadan, and to run for 48 days until April 21. It was the 10th year FESTIRA had been held at PREC’s shopping centres. PREC said it welcomed an arrangement that makes it easier for traders and shoppers in its buildings to transact through e-wallets and the DuitNow app supplied by MBSB Bank.
Sources
- Bayaran digital di festival Ramadan Selangor (Kosmo Online, by Mohd Yunus Yakkub)
- Kerjasama MBSB Bank, PREC perkasa PKS (Utusan Malaysia)
