MDEC is a name that is familiar to most in Malaysia as the agency that acts as an enabler for Malaysia’s digital economy. The agency has also been active on the fintech front — from launching a congregational point that also act as a co-working space called The ORBIT, to co-organising Malaysia’s first Fintech Week with Bank Negara Malaysia.
As Malaysia’s fintech scene shifts from its infancy stage to the next phase of growth, we need to evaluate our strategy on how we should be positioning ourselves within the global arena — especially in face of well-established fintech hubs like Singapore and Hong Kong.
We are not without our advantages, the Malaysian population is digitally savvy and has developed an affinity towards adopting digital financial products. This is shown in Bank Negara Malaysia’s statistics which indicates that we’re seeing more than 7 times growth in e-money transactions in this decade and our high mobile banking penetration of over 50%.
Similarly, a recent study by PwC also supports this narrative as well, their survey shows that 74% of Malaysians responded that they are keen to become virtual banking customers.
When you combine that propensity for adoption with Malaysia’s leadership position in Islamic Finance, there are clear opportunities that are not fully tapped within the Islamic fintech space. There aren’t any obvious leaders globally for Islamic fintech yet and Malaysia may yet well be a potential front runner for that title.
In the midst of all these, MDEC sits in the centre of the ecosystem facilitating interactions, policies and strategies between industry, regulator, and end-users. MDEC’s vision and direction in this will play a major role in shaping Malaysia’s fintech future.
To deep dive into this, we will be sitting down with MDEC’s new Chairman, Datuk Wira Dr Hj.Rais Hussin Mohamed to get a sense what is vision is for MDEC and Malaysia’s fintech scene as a whole.
Join our livestream interview on the 23rd July 2020 at 11:00 am to learn more, participants are also welcome to submit their questions, the event will be streamed live on Facebook and you can get the link to tune in here
