Malaysian payments network and infrastructure provider PayNet has appointed Gary Yeoh as its new Chief Commercial Officer.
The new appointment to oversee PayNet’s commercial operations follows an eventful year for Yeoh, a veteran of the Malaysian payments scene who had quick stints at both payments platform Fave and buy now pay later (BNPL) operator Atome in 2022.
Yeoh brings a lot of varied experience to the table. As a pioneering member of the Berjaya Loyalty program (Bcard), Yeoh led the business development of Bcard to achieve massive growth with a base of over 4.5 million card holders with over 100 merchants on board.
The program won numerous awards and recognition during his six years there, before Yeoh joined the fledgling Boost e-wallet team in 2017. In over four years there, Yeoh helped Axiata Digital’s fintech unit to grow from a cutting-edge application with a rewarding user experience to a heavily used, essential e-wallet for Malaysian consumers — garnering over 9 million users and 350 thousand merchants during Yeoh’s tenure at Boost.
He brought his sizable knowledge in loyalty promotions and payments to payments platform Fave, where he was made the country manager in February 2022. As Malaysian country manager, Yeoh oversaw the day-to-day operations as well as shepherded Fave’s venture into the buy now pay later space that was fast-growing at the time. The company said in a statement at the time that Yeoh would also be responsible for developing the brand’s market leadership in the country to accelerate adoption of innovative digital payment technology across Malaysia.
“I am confident that with Gary’s leadership, Fave will grow and further strengthen our position in Malaysia’s digital payments and BNPL landscape,” Fave Group CEO Joel Neoh said at the time.
After his lengthy and successful stints at Bcard and Boost, industry observers were surprised to learn that within six months of being named Fave Malaysia country manager, Yeoh was announced as the General Manager of BNPL platform Atome in August 2022.
Atome had launched at the end of 2020 in Malaysia and had experienced exponential growth in a brief period, acquiring over 3,000 merchant partners including ZALORA, Agoda, Sephora, Watsons, Switch, Machines, Decathlon, Senheng, ALDO, SHEIN, Bjak, and Mydin.
Yeoh was able to harness over two decades of experience across retail, financial and payment sectors to bear to spearhead Atome’s growth in Malaysia. The BNPL service provider had already made several improvements earlier in 2022 to enhance both its customer and merchant experience, that saw it rank among the top five most downloaded shopping apps in Malaysia.
Among the enhancements to its app in Malaysia was the addition of Malay language features, adding deferred payment options for longer periods over six or 12 months at selected merchants, and launching Islamic partnership with PayHalal, the world’s first Syariah-compliant payment gateway.
Now less than five months later, Gary Yeoh will oversee commercial operations for PayNet as the new Chief Commercial Officer.
“2023 was a interesting but tough year. Appreciate the time I spent at Fave with Joel Neoh and Chen Chow Yeoh for the first half of the year then a short but interesting stint at Atome,” Yeoh shared on LinkedIn.
“Looking forward to the new adventure and to catching up with old friends and to meeting new friends from the industry.”
