GrabPay rides on MY govt's e-wallet initiative to drive cashless adoption

Payment solution GrabPay has jumped on board the Malaysian government’s ePENJANA initiative, under which the government will channel RM750 million into the hands of an estimated 15 million e-wallet users to help local businesses recover by encouraging them to shop for their wants and essentials. The ePENJANA initiative comes under the short-term economic recovery plan, with the Malaysian government providing RM50 ePENJANA credits to users.

The partnership comes as Grab aims to provide Malaysians a safe payment method that offers more value when users shop cashless for their household essentials such as groceries, pharmacies, food, electronics and hardware across the nation. Since the MCO in Malaysia, Grab has noted over 60% growth in GrabPay users within the first few weeks. In addition, Grab said 70% of the RM50 claimants spent the money at its GrabPay merchants, with almost 50% of users who were active users in its ecosystem. Corresponding to the RM50 contribution from the government, Grab will be topping up an additional RM50 worth of vouchers which can be used for any Grab services or at any of Malaysia’s favourite restaurants or shops nationwide. In addition to this, claimants can also earn GrabRewards points which can be used as savings for any online or offline transaction.

Grab said it hoped users would see this initiative “beyond just a seasonal effort by both government and private sector to stimulate the economy, but in the long term, cultivate a stronger adoption of digital payments that would benefit businesses who had been impacted by the pandemic”.  It added that the company wanted to encourage its users to embrace a fully digital lifestyle such as to use the MySejahtera app to help ease tracing their movement in this new normal.

“As with any form of payment method, safety and security is important hence Malaysians need to educate themselves on protecting their e-wallets. Therefore, we are committed to partnering with the Government and like-minded partners to build an educated and resilient Malaysia powered by a digital economy. In doing so, we want to continue to nurture inclusive financial literacy amongst Malaysians and ultimately bridge the financial gap,” Grab explained.

Separately, GrabPay rolled out the GrabPay card together with Mastercard last year, expanding its offline and online merchant ecosystem by allowing users, regardless of whether they have a bank account, to transact securely and easily. The card came as part of Grab's ongoing partnership with Mastercard that aimed to bring financial inclusion to the millions of underbanked and unbanked in Southeast Asia. 

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