Key Takeaway from Malaysia's First FinTech Expo

The first Malaysian FinTech expo wrapped up recently, in the first week of March, 2018.

If crowd size and the number of exhibitors are anything to go by, then one can safely assume that competition for the PayTech market in Malaysia is absolutely intense. The expo was teeming with both local and global players offering e-wallet software. The event itself was partially sponsored by “Boost” an e-wallet that helps people make retail payments using their smartphones.

Alipay also had a booth at the expo, and representatives from Samsung Pay and FavPay also made an appearance. Competition is intense in the budding e-wallet market in Malaysia, and it is going to stay that way for the unforeseeable future, until one or two players take over the market, leaving rest of the competition in the dust.

Other than unending hordes of e-wallets, there were some promising banking tech at the expo.

JurisTech caused a stir, drawing large crowds to their booth, which included bankers and wealth management professionals from Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Bangladesh. This implies a strong demand for loan origination software, AI powered early warning system for NPLs, debt collection systems and other digital transformation solutions; in South Asia and South East Asian countries.

Other interesting tech at the expo included eKYC service providers such as Innov8tif, who showed off their facial recognition sign-in system at the expo.

Rakuten Trade bagged the first prize at the expo, for being Malaysia’s first online equity broker and app-based trading service provider.