#TECH: Making it easy for merchants to adopt digital payment

IF you go to the famous Pasar Payang in Kuala Terengganu today, but forget to bring enough cash or you prefer not to use cash in the light of the pandemic, you can just pay digitally.

This is because many of the merchants there, despite selling local and traditional goods, have opted to go digital as one of the payment mechanisms.

Thanks to DuitNow QR, which is the national QR paymet code, the merchants can get payment via QR from customers who use bank apps and major e-wallets nationwide.

DuitNow QR is the national QR code standard. Singapore and Thailand also have one each.

According to PayNet’s director, retail payments, Khairuan Abdul Rahman, which manages the DuitNow QR deployment, the DuitNow QR under PayNet is owned by Bank Negara Malaysia and 11 Malaysian banks as shareholders.

DuitNow QR is established under Bank Negara Malaysia’s Interoperable Credit Transfer Framework (ICTF) and PayNet was mandated to implement the interoperable common QR standard for Malaysia.

“With this national QR code standard, businesses have the option of not to clutter their payment counter by displaying multiple QR codes. DuitNow QR will facilitate payment from any bank and e-wallet,” he said.

“Our vision is to empower the Malaysian digital economy based on four pillars, which include to boost the adoption of e-payment for Malaysia, proactively explore innovation opportunities, advanced ecosystem engagement and develop and maintain future-ready infrastructure,” he added.

Khairuan said DuitNow already processed in excess of 2 billion transactions a year.

Understanding QR code payment

In a layman term, QR allows the consumers to make payment or even to transfer money to a friend or family members, from any mobile banking app, and soon from major e-wallets as well.

Khairuan said DuitNow QR is not an app by itself as it rides on the bank’s banking app and other e-wallet services like Grab, Touch ‘n Go and Boost.

“So in order to make a purchase, consumers need to scan the QR code from their phone’s mobile app. Meanwhile, for businesses, DuitNow QR allows business owners to accept payments from any customer, any bank or major e-wallets by only displaying one QR code on the payment counter,” he explained, adding that businesses will be able to get money credited to their account immediately, and many acquirers (the banks) are offering the service for free.

“For the consumers, they need to have a mobile banking app or major e-wallet app, what they need to do is just open the banking app and scan the QR, confirm the amount and make the payment,” he added.

Khairuan said PayNet is making it easy for merchants to go on board the DuitNow QR by offering a one stop reference at https://www.duitnow.my/DuitNow-QR/.

“For the businesses meanwhile, the DuitNow QR is easy to subscribe by reaching out to their preferred acquirer and to day we have nine of them, like Maybank, RHB Bank, ShopeePay, OCBC, Public Bank, HSBC, CIMB, Bank Muamalat and AmBank. They offer self regisration from the mobile app to businesses. There are two apps the acquirer provides – one for the consumer and the other for the businesses,” he said.

Change of lifestyle

Digital payment has become a part of our day to day lifestyle following the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Traditional businesses like barbers, clinics, stalls, market, are adopting it because the payment follows the norm of social distancing as both parties can (customers and merchants) use it without having to be close to each other. Besides that, consumers will also enjoy the freedom of not having to carry a lot of cash everywhere, which can be dangerous,” said Khairuan.

He also gave an example of how digital payment has changed his lifestyle.

“For example, for me, every morning I run, and now I no longer bring my wallet for the fear of being robbed. So I just have my smartphone wth me and I can enter a coffee shop after my run, for example, and buy a drink with my smartphone. So, that’s one way QR like DuitNow is making it easy and safer for people to make payment,” he said.

The beautiful thing about QR payment is that it is as good as cash. “When I say this, even a Makcik selling banana fritters can use it for her business,” said Khairuan.

“So users do not need financial education to use it. The Makcik doesn’t have to use a calculator or calculate the change she needs to return as everything will be automated,” he said, adding that businesses can just show the DuitNow QR to the customer for payment and serve other customers at the same time.

“Today we have a wide range of businesses that accept DuitNow QR from the high-end retailers to food trucks, including Makcik selling banana fritters,” said Khairuan.

Programmes

Among the latest programmes run by PayNet to promote the DuitNow QR is the usage of QR payment in Pasar Payang in Kuala Terengganu which started late last year, which is an initiative with Terengganu State Government.

“We also work with Touch ‘n Go, Maybank and Bank Mualamat and with Bank Negara,” he said.

“Besides that, we also work closely with business associations, government agencies and local councils to spread the benefit of adopting DuitNow QR,” he added.

Khairuan said the target is to have all sellers at Pasar Payang use the QR code payment where right now about 60 percent are already on board the payment system.

He said the good thing about DuitNow QR is that it offers real-time settlement for the merchants.

“Again for merchants like the Makcik selling banana fritters, she needs cash daily to run her business. So she can make such arrangements with the banks to have the money processed and transferred immediately to her account just like receiving cash,” he explained.

While, for the bigger businesses that may not need the money immediately, they can arrange for the money to be transferred once a day, which can be arranged with the acquirers.

Currently more than one hundred thousand businesses have already signed up for DuitNow QR and majority of them are small and micro businesses.

Khairuan explained that there are two types of QR, which is the merchant-presented QR where the customer scans the QR displayed by the merchants, while the bigger player would prefer the consumer-presented QR, which means the scan the customers’ QR.

“We plan to launch the customer-presented QR in the third quarter of this year, he said.

Source: NST