Atome launched its very own BNPL card, dubbed the Atome Card, a couple of months back, and since then, most eyes have been trained on it. Given that Malaysia now has 7.5 million active BNPL account holders, the segment seems to keep adding products that blur the line between instalment financing and everyday purchasing. The Atome Card sits squarely in that grey zone: it works at any merchant that accepts Visa, and comes with zero annual fees. Yet it is also not a credit card, and runs BNPL instalments. What is the Atome Card? The Atome Card is a BNPL-based…

RM2.8 billion is how much Malaysians lost to scams last year, according to BNM’s fresh-off-the-press 2025 Annual Report. The report doesn’t shy away from the human toll either, recounting the plights of retirees being wiped clean and families watching emergency funds vanish overnight. The Malaysian scam cases keep on piling up, like a recent one where a 55-year-old assistant manager from Bentong lost RM1.3 million in a phone scam. The modus operandi involved a single call from someone claiming to be from a delivery company and a quick chat with a fake “police officer”. Within days, she’d transferred her entire…

There’s a scene in Crazy Rich Asians where Rachel Chu, the female lead who’s an economics professor, is in conversation with Princess Intan, and the conversation steers towards microloans. One line stood out for me. “Microloans help women, and women lift up economies.” It’s a small idea built on big dreams. Give women access to capital, and watch what follows. The film presents it as self-evident. Reality, however, spells a different tale, especially in the venture capital world. Despite years of noise around diversity in venture capital and louder championing of female founders across Southeast Asia, the share of early-stage…

We’re living in a time when convenience is moving as quickly as you can blink, including all things payments, thanks to the gift of AI. Yet the very same technology is fuelling something far more sinister and constantly proving harder to tackle: fraud. Fraud numbers are growing exponentially. According to Juniper Research, eCommerce fraud could rise from $56 billion in 2025 to hit highs of $131 billion in 2030, with factors like friendly fraud carving deeply into merchant margins. Visa paints an equally alarming picture. Today’s cyber criminals are arriving armed with AI-powered deepfakes, synthetic identities, and agentic scams that…

“It’s like a drug.” That’s how a Redditor described their descent into the Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) rabbit hole. As a fellow BNPL user myself, I get where he’s coming from. BNPL is everywhere now, tucked into your checkouts, flashing at your payment page, and dropping innuendos that splitting a payment into three or more helps stretch your bank balance. It’s a convincing illusion, and for a lot of Malaysians, that’s exactly where it starts to unravel. The fine prints never announce themselves, and the effective interest rates don’t come with a warning label (yet, at least). Don’t forget…

With 3 million Malaysians under the younger demographic actively using cryptocurrencies, it’s apparent that it’s an increasingly popular investment option here. How do you start getting involved in buying cryptocurrency in Malaysia, though? This article will walk you through everything you need to know about the process of buying cryptocurrency in Malaysia, including licensed cryptocurrency platforms, legal aspects, and best practices for safe trading. Last updated: 16 March 2026 What is cryptocurrency? Cryptocurrency is a digital payment system that operates without the need for banks to verify transactions. It uses a peer-to-peer network, allowing people anywhere in the world to…

More than 3.4 billion digital wallets are already in use worldwide, powering close to $9 trillion in annual payments. By 2026, digital wallet adoption is expected to rise to 5.4 billion users, cementing e-wallets as one of the most dominant financial tools on the planet. Yet, despite these transaction volume surges, margins remain as thin as ever. Payment processing has become a scale game, with high-volume, low-yield written all over it. How do banks, fintechs, and payment providers turn these high-volume, low-margin transactions into sustainable profit? Is there a way to effectively move beyond transactions and build ecosystems that drive…

AI’s been reshaping financial services for several years now. But as its digital adoption accelerates, one factor determines whether AI extracts value or adds complexity: choosing the right partners for specialised applications. According to McKinsey, while AI tools are now widespread, most organisations have not embedded them deeply into their workflows, limiting their ability to generate impact at the enterprise level. The right AI fit has the capability to unlock something powerful, like transforming financial systems into agile, high-performance engines that respond as instantly as a digital-native platform. On the flip side, AI trained on flawed data and assumptions festers…

As a mom of three, keeping up with the rising cost of health insurance sometimes feels like a tug of war between protecting my family’s health and maintaining financial stability. I’ve watched as medical inflation has surged by as much as 15% in Malaysia, raising a difficult and increasingly common question for many households: will private health insurance eventually price us out of the very protection we rely on? The pressure stems from multiple sources, creating the perfect storm. We have an aging population, a rise in lifestyle diseases like diabetes, and the high costs of importing advanced medical tech…

Cash is out, and e-wallets are in. Digital wallets have become an integral part of daily life in Malaysia. Whether paying for groceries or grabbing a bite at the mamak, Malaysians appreciate the speed, convenience, and security that digital payments offer. DuitNow QR codes, for one, are a familiar sight at pasar malams and cafes, making cashless living simple and accessible almost everywhere. With digital wallets so deeply embedded in our routines, choosing the right e-wallet can really impact how you spend, save, and manage your money. Maybe it’s time to dig deeper. Which are the top five e-wallets in…

Everyone talks about building an AI-first bank. But what does it really demand? Put Malaysia’s top digital and incumbent bank leaders in one room, and you get the kind of raw clarity the rest of the industry rarely sees. That was exactly the atmosphere at the recent Malaysia Banking CxO Roundtable, where the country’s newest digital bank joined familiar industry faces to dissect what “AI first” truly means in practice. This mix of product leaders, technologists, marketers and operators offered a rare cross-functional view of what AI adoption really looks like inside a bank beyond the headlines and bold claims,…

Malaysia’s financial landscape underwent a profound transformation in 2025, moving decisively from policy discussions to live implementation. It was a year where regulatory frameworks, infrastructure upgrades, and new market entrants began to interact in meaningful, real-world ways, reshaping how Malaysians engage with money. From the launch of the Digital Asset Innovation Hub to the completion of its digital banking rollout, the nation demonstrated a coordinated push toward a more inclusive, efficient, and technologically advanced financial ecosystem. PM Anwar Kicks Off The Digital Asset Innovation Hub Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) officially launched the Digital Asset Innovation Hub during the Sasana Symposium…

As Malaysia’s financial sector becomes increasingly digital, the volume and complexity of customer information have grown just as quickly. The need for secure, reliable and well-governed data infrastructure has never been clearer. Trust, consistency and resilience now sit at the heart of a modern financial system. Today, BNM’s latest exposure draft on Open Finance sets out BNM’s proposed regulatory requirements on the topic. The proposed regulatory requirements is designed to give customers explicit, specific, voluntary and revocable control over how their financial information is access and used. While strengthening customer empowerment, it also aims to enable the industry to deliver…

The Malaysian government is intensifying efforts to boost high-value and innovation-driven sectors in 2026. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim announced during the tabling of Budget 2026 today that fresh allocations will expand access to capital for MSMEs through alternative financing channels such as peer-to-peer (P2P) and equity crowdfunding (ECF). As part of these measures, the government will channel RM200 million under the Strategic Co-Investment Fund (SCIF) to provide matching funds for MSMEs and mid-tier companies that strengthen the supply chains of key sectors through ECF and P2P platforms. These initiatives mark a significant step in advancing ECF and P2P…

During Malaysia’s Budget 2026 brief today, Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim revealed that MyDigital ID is targeting 15 million users by the end of this year. The national digital identity initiative will also be expanded across key sectors, including finance, communications, e-trading, and healthcare. MyDigital ID aims to deliver a secure, trusted, and user-friendly digital identity solution to support Malaysia’s growing digital ecosystem. Developed by MIMOS since 2016, MyDigital ID is backed by 32 registered patents spanning technologies such as secure authentication, access control, transaction signing, key management, and physical crypto verification, ensuring a seamless and highly secure…

Is AI finally becoming a priority in Malaysia’s financial sector? According to Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) latest discussion paper, the answer is a clear yes. With 97% of Malaysian households connected to the internet and 98% carrying a smartphone, the stage is set for a technology leap. It’s also fuelled by a growing recognition among financial service providers (FSPs) that AI can deliver tangible business and consumer value. The discussion paper, which covered an industry-wide BNM AI survey with 120 responses (BNM AI Survey 2024), found that 71% of banking institutions and development financial institutions (DFIs) had implemented at least…

Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) Governor Dato’ Sri Abdul Rasheed Ghaffour opened MyFintech Week 2025 (MyFW) with a call for deeper collaboration, sharing that this year’s theme, “Ideate, Innovate, Co-Create: Shaping the Future of Finance”, reflected its spirit. “The challenges before us require whole-of-ecosystem solutions. And the future we are building demands that policymakers, regulators, technologists, investors and innovators sit at the same table,” he said. He noted that the financial sector is being moulded by three powerful forces: digitalisation, sustainability, and demographic change. Emerging technologies such as generative AI and blockchain are reshaping business models and shifting what customers expect…

“The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. It would take off on its own and redesign itself at an ever-increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, could not compete and would be superseded.” A little over a decade ago, Stephen Hawking, one of the world’s most celebrated theoretical physicists, issued this stark warning to the BBC. He cautioned that humanity’s pursuit of thinking machines might ultimately threaten our very survival. Fast forward to today, and the alarm bells are ringing louder than ever. From mass layoffs triggered by AI to…

CapBay is a familiar name in Malaysia’s fintech space. Known for supply chain finance and its P2P financing platform, CapBay has channelled over RM4 billion in financing to more than 2,000 SMEs across 20 different sectors, driving financial inclusion in areas where access to capital remains a stubborn barrier. It’s also the only Malaysian fintech company featured on CNBC’s list of the World’s Top Fintech Companies. But success wasn’t always a straightforward path. Behind CapBay’s growth lies a story of grit, setbacks, and quiet resilience. One that kept the company moving forward, even when everything else seemed to be falling…

Malaysia’s insurance and takaful industry stands at a pivotal moment. With over 10 million people and 644,000 micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) currently unserved, the market has a glaring protection gap. Yet, this challenge presents a remarkable opportunity: an estimated RM78 billion digital insurance and takaful market opportunity is projected to emerge by 2030. At the centre of this shift are Digital Insurers and Takaful Operators (DITOs), an incoming new breed of providers poised to redefine protection by making it simpler, more accessible, and more personalised through technology. For traditional insurance and takaful operators (ITOs), the key question is…