Now a newly industrialised market economy, it is ranked the third- largest in Southeast Asia and 33rd-largest in the world. According to a recent HSBC report, Malaysia will become the world’s 21st largest economy by 2050, with a GDP of $1.2 trillion and a GDP per capita of $29,247.

Like other countries in Southeast Asia, Malaysia, which has a population of 33.5 million, has a rapidly evolving payments landscape and has recently enjoyed accelerated e-commerce growth, driven largely by high mobile penetration rates, which rose to 78% in 2020. Naturally, Malaysians favour mobile payments, with usage hitting 40% last year, dwarfing that of neighbouring countries like Singapore (26%) which has an extremely developed payments infrastructure. The number of mobile banking payments also soared by 125% in 2020 following the initiation of the Movement Control Order (MCO) to curb the spread of Covid-19, which lent to the immense growth of its digital economy…Read More