PayNet processed 8.44 billion digital payment transactions in 2025 as cashless payments gained further ground across Malaysia.
The total reflects wider use of digital payments across retail spending, transport, peer-to-peer transfers and small businesses, with adoption rising among banks, non-bank players, merchants and consumers.
Praveen Rajan, Chief Executive Officer of PayNet, said,
“The continued growth in digital payments reflects a broader shift in how Malaysians move and manage money in their daily lives.
Digital payments are becoming the preferred payment method across consumers, businesses and public services, enabled by continued innovation and collaboration across banks, non-banks participants, merchants and the government”
Bank transaction volumes rose 30.69 percent in 2025, while non-bank transactions grew 71.7 percent. Compared with 2024, the network handled an average of 6.3 million more transactions a day.
Merchant acceptance also expanded, with 681,250 new DuitNow QR acceptance points added, including 267,780 among micro, small and medium enterprises, bringing the nationwide total to more than three million.
Digital payments also grew outside major cities in Malaysia in 2025. Non-urban transaction volumes tripled year-on-year in Terengganu, Kelantan and Kedah.
As transaction volumes rose, fraud risks also became more complex, including scams involving artificial intelligence, deepfakes and social engineering.
In response, financial institutions and ecosystem partners stepped up coordination through the National Fraud Portal, a platform developed by PayNet to help institutions share information, identify mule accounts faster and respond more quickly to fraudulent transactions.
These measures helped identify about 57,700 victim accounts in 2025, with around RM46 million in earmarked funds in the process of being returned to affected users.
The network processed an average of 260 transactions per second during the year while maintaining 99.995 percent service availability.
PayNet also expanded its cross-border QR payment network in 2025 with a new linkage to Cambodia, adding to existing connections with Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and China. India is expected to follow in 2026.
Cross-border QR transactions rose 2.5 times to 29.7 million in 2025, giving Malaysian businesses, especially MSMEs, broader access to regional consumers.
