KUALA LUMPUR: Pertama Digital Bhd's (PDB) digital bail payment solution eJamin is showing rapid growth following the Malaysian courts encouragement to digital shift amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
PDB executive director Sabri Ab Rahman said given that the courts have been adopting digital processes even before the pandemic, acceptance of eJamin by the tech-savvy Malaysian judiciary as well as the general public is very encouraging.
eJamin is Malaysia's digital bail payment solution developed by PDB's portfolio company, DAPAT Vista (M) Sdn Bhd (DVSB).
It allows bailors to make payments digitally within a few minutes, ensuring a quick release of accused persons pending their criminal cases being heard.
PDB reported that a total of RM45.46 million in bail collections were collected from January to December 2020, with a monthly growth rate of 18.21 per cent.
According to its estimations, the total bail collection in 2021 will reach RM450 million.
To date, eJamin has been implemented in 133 court locations around Malaysia and the number is still growing.
DVSB chief executive officer Amanda Sabri said the company is working hard to continuously enhance their systems to bring more convenience to the general public transacting at courts.
The company updated eJamin to version 2.0 in December 2020 to enhance user-friendliness, and is now developing a new feature that enables direct transfer of bail refunds to settle fines imposed by courts.
This feature is slated to be launched by the first quarter of 2021.
PDB is also looking into expanding the digital bail system for police remands and the Syariah criminal courts.
"The Covid-19 pandemic is speeding up the adoption of digital payments in many sectors of the economy, and this applies to bail payments too.
"We welcome the recent statement by the Chief Justice on enhancement of technology usage within the court environment. Now that our systems are stabilised and widespread, people can look towards phasing out the traditional way of paying bail and fully using eJamin," Amanda said.
She said in light of the re-implementation of the Movement Control Order (MCO) in January, the courts are ensuring that bail transactions can be processed as usual.
The use of eJamin directly contributes to that objective, for the ease of the rakyat, Amanda said.
She further added that for full adoption to be achieved, the company is seeking cooperation from banks to lift the financial process exchange (FPX) transfer limit on eJamin transactions.
"Bail amounts in Malaysia can range from a few thousand up to a million or more. Today, there is a payment transfer limit per transaction.
"Therefore, we need the backing of PayNet, certain banks and the authorities to revise the FPX and bank transfer limits to help make the use of online bail payments applicable to a wider variety of cases," Amanda said.