KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 20 — Homegrown lifestyle e-wallet Boost will continue to support businesses, especially micro and small enterprises, through funding and protection in the form of insurance.
Chief executive officer Mohd Khairil Abdullah said although over 120,000 micro and small businesses are connected with Boost, only about 15,000 have actually signed up for its business digitalisation programme.
“We are are looking to penetrate a broader subset of these businesses in order for them to get in the e-wallet ecosystem and continue to trade and survive in the midst of Covid-19 challenges,” he said during the ‘Building a Robust E-Wallet Ecosystem to Crisis-Proof the Nation’ virtual conference today.
Mohd Khairil said there would be three components to the ecosystem, the first is cashless payment tools with the e-wallet, while the second is micro-financing through its sister company, Aspirasi, a digital financing provider, to ensure that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have the cash flow for their business operations or to channel their capital for business digitisation.
The third component refers to supporting businesses to move from offline to online under the SME Digitalisation Grant by the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), in partnership with Celcom.
He said under the SME Digitalisation Grant, Boost would provide simplified digital business solutions, including the Boost Business Solution that equips offline merchants with digital payment tools which enables them to track transaction histories and sales data, among other things.
The digital payment tools also includes the Boost Payment Link, a contactless payment feature which allows merchants to send a payment URL link via email or messaging apps to customers.
Meanwhile, its Digital Marketing Solution “starter pack” helps merchants to launch their campaign marketing efforts, and it also offers a micro-insurance scheme which gives them the ability to protect their income from disruptions.
On the possibilities of mergers and acquisitions, Mohd Khairil said Boost is more interested in collaborating with the smaller players to see how both parties can inter-operate and continue to be relevant to their user base.
“We all need to work on how to provide secure cash service transactions amidst the Covid-19 pandemic,” he said, adding that e-wallets have become a reliable, safer, cleaner and convenient payment method in the new normal.
In September 2020, Boost saw a 288 per cent year-on-year increase in the number of users paying their utility, telco prepaid and postpaid bills, as well as other bills via the e-wallet service. — Bernama
