Malaysian fintech startup MoneyMatch announced that it is one of the participants of the consortium led by KAF Investment Bank which was recently selected to receive an Islamic digital banking license in Malaysia.
The consortium also comprises Jirnexu, best known for their comparison site RinggitPlus, as well as Carsome, a digital marketplace for used cars which emerged as Malaysia’s first unicorn.
Following the successful digital banking license application as part of the KAF-led consortium, MoneyMatch will now be launching its Series B fundraising round.
It is already in talks with several local and regional institutional investors, investment banks and venture capital funds and will close the round by the middle of this year.
The funds will be used to ramp up its investments in cutting edge technologies, upgraded financial infrastructure and business development scale-up efforts to various new countries in the region by next year.
MoneyMatch had previously announced in July 2021 that it was applying for a digital banking license subsequent to the closing of its RM18.5 million Series A investment round together with its plans for expansion.
The company was a member of the first cohort of Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) regulatory sandbox in 2017 with its eKYC solutions within the cross-border payments space. It was the first successful graduate of the sandbox a few years later.
MoneyMatch has since expanded with multiple payments licenses overseas and will now be actively involved in contributing its experience, infrastructure, and resources towards building the Malaysian Islamic digital bank.
Moving forward, the KAF-led Islamic digital banking consortium partners will be working towards full operational readiness and launch, with further details to be announced later.
BNM had recently announced the five recipients of the digital banking licenses on 29th April after a month of delay.
Adrian Yap, the CEO of MoneyMatch, said,
“First and foremost we would like to thank KAF for having the vision and tenacity to lead the consortium and get us over the line amidst the tough competition.
Secondly, we would like to extend our gratitude to the regulators for giving us an opportunity to better serve the people and businesses of Malaysia with our innovative offerings.”
Naysan Munusamy, the Co-Founder of MoneyMatch, added,
“The future is looking bright for Malaysia with our government and regulators leading the way with digitalisation efforts across all sectors in the region.
Digital banking is the future for our nation, and we are extremely proud to be part of the first batch to bring about this paradigm shift in financial services together with our consortium partners.”
