Malaysia’s fintech scene has never lacked energy. What it has lacked, for years, is a centre of gravity that could pull startups, banks, corporates and investors into the same orbit.

That is now changing, and we have PayNet to thank for that.

For a long time, PayNet was known mainly as the national operator that kept the country’s payment rails humming. That work remains vital, but the company is now taking on a role that looks very different from its past.

Through the PayNet Fintech Hub, it is positioning itself as the ecosystem builder that can accelerate the country’s next generation of fintech champions.

The market has been waiting for a coordinated platform like this.

And the Hub is beginning to show how powerful the impact can be when the fragments of a growing fintech ecosystem finally start connecting to one another.

Why the Hub Matters at This Moment

The Fintech Hub is PayNet’s attempt to bring the entire industry into one single collaborative environment.

The team behind it believes that Malaysia needs a structure that nurtures innovation from the earliest concept stage all the way to global readiness.

But there are hiccups.

Most startups typically encounter their first struggle with early runway, regulatory guidance and access to large institutions. Financial institutions often have the appetite to innovate but require stronger proof points, clearer compliance readiness and reliable partners.

Corporates, well, they want fintech-driven efficiency, but they seem to not always know how to engage with smaller tech companies. All of these gaps and cracks point to the same problem.

Malaysia has the drivers, but the highway between them has always been too narrow.

That gap was exactly what PayNet set out to address when it launched the Fintech Hub earlier this year.

“When we launched the Hub in May 2025, our goal was to create Malaysia’s first platform designed around the real needs of fintechs. We wanted startups to have a place to build, test and scale, while connecting them directly to industry partners, capital support and hands-on mentorship,” said Gary Yeoh, Chief Marketing Officer of PayNet.

“As a non-profit initiative under PayNet, which runs the national payments network, the Hub reflects our wider mission to enable secure, efficient and inclusive financial services. Its focus is straightforward, which is to strengthen the fintech pipeline and support national goals in digital finance and financial inclusion.”

PayNet sees this, and they’ve come up with quite a simple four-way approach. The company wants to first build a connected ecosystem that removes friction and accelerates commercial partnerships.

Then, they want to equip startups with resources that allow them to experiment. Thirdly, guide banks and corporates to work more smoothly with early-stage companies.

And most importantly, create a space where innovation can actually reach Malaysians in ways that matter.

Giving Early-Stage Fintechs the Room To Build

That effort seems to bear fruit as of today, the Fintech Hub already has more than 50 fintech startups and 50 ecosystem partners spanning banks, technology providers, investors and shared services engaged in it, all just within the first 5 months, with full credit to how PayNet have actually done it.

So far, the Hub has created 26 opportunities for pilots and collaborations, including 7 fintech-corporate pilots and 4 fintech-to-fintech pilots, many of which have already moved beyond MoUs into live testing and integration.

Plus, not to forget, each startups get access to RM1 million PayNet Credit Fund that is helping founders test real pilots without burning through their budgets, which is often the point where promising ideas stall.

For founders, that flexibility can make the difference between a cautious experiment and a serious launch.

“The PayNet Credit Fund really helped us go all in on making our partnership with TNG eWallet a success,” said Joshua Lim, Co-Founder and CEO of Buzz.

“Instead of worrying about the budget, we could focus on building something great. The programme truly enabled us to launch at a level that would not have been possible otherwise.”

Not only that, but they will also receive RM600,000 worth of advisory support across legal, HR, finance and market research.

Altogether, PayNet has committed more than RM5 million in combined value-added support, including RM3 million in cloud credits from major providers.

The aid is hoped to help remove the kind of early-stage barriers that usually slow founders down.

PayNet also knows that not everyone needs help in the form of cash. Some might need a place to kickstart their company journey. Hence, that’s why they are also assisting with providing these interested companies with co-working spaces.

They intend to make sure that the co-working space helps to bring all of the members into the same physical environment and proximity. All with the hope that it can help accelerate learning in ways no online accelerator ever could.

Early Impact Numbers Are Telling Us That It Is Working

The impact of the Fintech Hub is also starting to show up in real numbers, and the signal is hard to miss.

The community has already generated more than RM1.5 billion in projected value, a figure that reflects both the volume of activity happening inside the Hub and the appetite across the industry to work together.

Participating startups have also raised more than US$1 million collectively. It’s a meaningful signal of investor confidence at a time when funding remains quite selective.

Through these pilots, more than 8 million B40 Malaysians and over 800,000 MSMEs could potentially benefit, particularly as solutions help smaller businesses move up the value chain from MSMEs to SMEs.

What is even more interesting is what these results suggest. The Hub is showing that collaboration is not something you wait for and hope for. It can actually be designed.

In some cases, that collaboration is happening directly between fintechs themselves.

“Through the Fintech Hub community, we were able to collaborate with a fellow fintech to strengthen our AI capabilities,” said Shadhana Sekaran, Co-Founder and CEO of InsureKU.

“Our partnership with Unbraided AI enables AI-powered document verification, allowing us to significantly speed up claims processing while improving the detection of fraudulent submissions.”

When startups share the same space as banks, cloud providers, corporate partners, professional service firms and the national payment operator itself, the pace of innovation shifts.

Decisions move faster. Experiments move faster. Problems get solved faster.

And that momentum is exactly what the ecosystem has been trying to unlock for years.

Guidance From People Who Have Actually Built Companies

PayNet’s leadership sees the Hub as a long-term nation-building effort, and that belief shapes how the entire platform operates.

Gary Yeoh has also consistently emphasised the need for a model that reflects Malaysia’s realities rather than a borrowed version of Silicon Valley.

For him, the Hub is about bringing the community together, telling Malaysia’s story with more confidence and creating an environment where founders feel they can build and scale without leaving the country.

Group CEO Farhan Ahmad carries that ambition even further. His vision is to develop a homegrown ecosystem capable of producing the next wave of global fintech players, not just local champions.

That aspiration, he hopes, can set the tone for the kind of support the Hub offers.

And because of these two, one of the clearest expressions of their support is to provide a mentorship network. Gary and Farhan both wants to give the Hub a very different flavour from any traditional accelerators.

The mentors will be from a list of founders and leaders from MoneyLion, Fave, Razer Fintech, EnGame, CloudMile and Finology, all who have actually built and scaled companies.

The advice and mentorship will come from a group with deep experience across product, growth, compliance and expansion. People who have lived through the challenges Malaysian founders now might face.

Because of that, the guidance is practical and grounded, not theoretical.

Startups receive more than 450 hours of dedicated support, allowing mentors to go beyond quick advice and actually help shape strategy, product and execution.

It is a level of depth that most accelerators struggle to deliver, and it is becoming one of the reasons the Hub is gaining such strong traction among early and growth-stage fintechs.

The Energy Behind TGIF and What It Signalled

The momentum behind the Hub came into full view during the flagship TGI Friday event on 17 October.

It was one of those sessions where the entire community seemed to show up with something to share. The atmosphere quickly turned into a mix of progress updates, collaboration showcases, and conversations that would have been difficult to spark anywhere else.

Founders spoke about pilots already in motion. Banks and corporates talked openly about how they were working with early-stage fintechs from the Hub.

Even more encouraging were the collaborations between fintechs that had only met a few months earlier and were already testing ways to integrate their solutions.

The event was the kind of activity that only happens when people meet often enough to build trust.

TGIF is not a one-off gathering either, as it is part of a broader monthly cadence that PayNet has been running to keep the ecosystem connected and moving.

Those regular touchpoints are quietly helping the community develop the trust and familiarity that early partnerships usually struggle to find.

It offers a sense of momentum that naturally feeds into the Hub’s bigger ambition.

Preparing Local Fintechs for International Scalability

That ambition becomes even clearer when you look at how PayNet is pushing Malaysian fintechs toward global readiness. 

PayNet wants to place founders in environments where international standards, expectations and competition become part of how they build from the outset.

The PayNet x Imperial Catalyst Programme sits at the heart of that strategy, whereby it stands out not just because it is international, but because it is deliberately designed to move Malaysian fintechs beyond local market thinking and into global operating contexts.

Built in partnership with Imperial College London, the programme gives selected fintechs a ten-week accelerator experience that begins with a week-long immersion in London.

During that time, founders are exposed to international mentors, advanced workshops, and direct engagement with leading UK fintechs.

It’s an experience that offers a first-hand look at how global players structure products, navigate regulation, and scale across markets.

For founders who went through the programme, the experience was deliberately practical rather than academic.

“The one-week programme at Imperial focused on blended learning, not just classroom sessions,” said Nazrul Hazeri Nazirmuddin, Co-Founder of Kapitani.

“We had theory, mentoring discussions around real use cases and implementation experiences shared by the mentors. The practical elements allowed us to replicate what we learned within our business,” he pointed out.

The journey then moves into execution, culminating in a Demo Day in March 2026. Founders will then present to a pool of regional and international investors who are actively scouting Southeast Asian ventures.

This kind of structured access to global capital and networks is something that these founders would normally spend years trying to secure on their own.

The programme also encourages founders to think regionally and globally from the start, rather than just keeping themselves anchored to a single domestic market.

In many ways, the approach also mirrors Malaysia’s wider push to turn digital innovation into exportable growth.

It is safe to say that the Hub wants not only to help companies grow locally.

It is also preparing them to compete on a much bigger stage.

Learn more about the PayNet Fintech Hub here.

Featured image by PayNet.