Kenanga Investment Bank Berhad (Kenanga) today announced its partnership with Merchantrade Asia Sdn Bhd (Merchantrade) to introduce their e-wallet, Kenanga Money, which will be supported by a Visa prepaid card feature.

Kenanga said that this marks the bank’s entry into the cashless payment space as part of its ongoing digitalisation journey. The e-wallet, they said, will enable their clients to easily transfer funds from their stock trading account into an e-wallet and prepaid card for retail payments, remittance and withdrawals worldwide.

Users will also be able to tap into their multi-currency function which enables them to buy, sell and store and store up to 20 foreign currencies at any given time, at Merchantrade’s rates.

“With almost 300,000 Kenanga account holders, our pursuit of digitalisation is centred on augmenting our ecosystem to create new value-add for our clients. Kenanga Money will complement the growing suite of digital solutions we have in the pipeline that are geared towards the delivery of an integrated, seamless and multifaceted environment for our fast- expanding client base,”

“said Datuk Chay Wai Leong, Group Managing Director of Kenanga Investment Bank Berhad.

“We are constantly seeking for new opportunities with the right partners to work with, to broaden our reach to serve a wider market with our unique technology and solutions and are excited at the partnership with Kenanga Investment Bank Berhad, Malaysia’s leading retail stockbroker to launch Malaysia’s first stockbroker e-wallet. Both Kenanga and Merchantrade are homegrown brands that have stood the test of time, and are thriving through digital innovation. We are confident that Kenanga Money will be a game changer for the stockbroking industry and will be enthusiastically received by digitally-savvy and discerning stocktraders in the country today,”

said Ramasamy K Veeran, Managing Director of Merchantrade.

Merchantrade is a major remittance player in Malaysia with both an e-money and money services business license in Malaysia. The company claims to serve a base of over three million customers through its digital channels and their extensive nationwide physical network.

The company recently acquired a 100% stake in the Telenor-owned digital remittance player Valyou.