KUALA PERLIS: The Retail Sector Digitalisation Initiative (ReDI) programme has received encouraging response as 3,919 traders are actively using e-wallets for transactions nationwide.
Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs deputy minister Datuk Rosol Wahid said this showed that traders have started to accept cashless transactions as it was safer and faster.
He added that based on records of the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM), the income from e-commerce transactions surged by up to 30 per cent in the first quarter of 2021 to RM254.6 billion.
“Countries in the Southeast Asian region are currently at the peak of the financial revolution phase, where about 49 per cent of the urban population are already using e-wallet services.
“This number is projected to reach 84 per cent by 2025,” he told reporters after officiating at the state-level ReDI programme last night.
Rosol said the use of e-wallets increased by 131 per cent to over 600 million transactions in 2020 compared to the previous year.
“According to the recently released PayNet 2022 report, the percentage of Malaysians who use cash payments dropped to 78 per cent from 89 per cent before the pandemic,” he added.
Rosol said some 200 traders in Perlis have started to use e-wallet for transactions and hoped the number would continue to increase in the future. – BERNAMA
