Malaysia's real-time payment transactions exceeded 68 million in 2020

The latest global report from ACI Worldwide (ACI), a leading global provider of real-time electronic payment and banking solutions, shows that Malaysia processed more than 68 million real-time payment transactions in 2020, a surge of 864% from 7 million in 2019.

The report, which analyses real-time, account-to-account payment volumes and forecasts for 48 markets worldwide, projects that real-time payments in Malaysia will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 83.91% between 2020 and 2025.

The report shows that although Malaysia’s real-time payment network is less than two years old, it already has strong infrastructure, bank and merchant support.

DuitNow was launched in 2018 by Malaysia’s national payments network and central infrastructure provider, the Malaysian Payments Network (PayNet), in partnership with ACI Worldwide, and allows users to transfer money instantly using their mobile phone number or identity card number.

The report shows that mobile wallet transaction volume in Malaysia increased by 171% in 2020. This was largely due to changes in consumers' payment preferences and lifestyles during the epidemic.

It is worth mentioning that the report found that in countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Malaysia, which have always been dominated by cash payments, the use of e-wallets has skyrocketed.

The report also said that the total number of real-time transactions in Malaysia is expected to grow to 1.45 billion by 2025. In 2020, the real-time share of electronic transactions in Malaysia was 1.9%, up from 0.2% in 2019. This share is expected to reach 16.5% by 2025.

Furthermore, the value of real-time transactions in Malaysia rose by 908% to US$5.55 billion from US$550 million in 2019. The report states that the compound annual growth rate is expected to be 96.04% by 2025.

Meanwhile, e-wallet transaction volume in Malaysia grew 171% in 2020.

Malaysia is one of the fastest growing countries in terms of real-time payments. The top country is Croatia, with a projected CAGR of 374.4% from 2020 to 2025, followed by Colombia (112.7%), Malaysia (83.9%), Peru (74.4%) and Finland (71.4%).

India was the country with the largest number of real-time transactions in 2020, reaching 25.5 billion transactions; followed by China (15.7 billion) and South Korea (6 billion); Thailand ranked fourth with 5.2 billion transactions.

The total number of real-time transactions in 2020 was 70.3 billion, an increase of 41% from 50 billion in 2019.

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