KUALA LUMPUR: 70 percent of Malaysian consumers preferring to visit merchants that accept digital payments compared to those that only accept cash, according to the Visa Consumer Payment Attitudes Study 2018.
This is an increase of 21 percent compared to the previous year, according to Visa, and clearly indicates that digital payments are becoming the payment method of choice in Malaysia.
"We are encouraged to see a growing preference for digital payments among Malaysian consumers. We see a similar trend based on our VisaNet data, where the total value of consumer spending on Visa and number of transactions have increased double-digit percent year on year.
"However, there are continued opportunities for growth because cash still accounts for more than 60 per cent of consumer spending in Malaysia,” said Visa country manager for Malaysia Ng Kong Boon.
The study shows over half of the respondents expect their use of digital payments to increase over the next year.
The merchant categories that consumers expect higher usage of digital payments include large shopping malls (65 per cent), supermarkets (60 per cent) and bill payments (57 per cent).
Top benefits cited for paying with digital payments include convenience (70 per cent), hassle-free (62 per cent), and wide acceptance (56 per cent).
More than half of the respondents (60 per cent) believe going cashless offers greater payment security, in addition to being able to track their spending better, even though cash remains the preferred payment method for small transaction amounts in the country.
"In the past few years, we have concentrated our efforts on expanding merchant contactless acceptance in the country. To date, we have enabled contactless payments acceptance in major merchant categories such as petrol stations, supermarkets, quick service restaurants and laundromats.
"As a result, Malaysia is now one of the fastest growing countries in Asia Pacific in terms of contactless payments usage. We are confident that our goal of becoming a cashless nation is moving a step closer because merchants and consumers appreciate the frictionless payments experience brought about by digital payments, Ng said.