MyMy Payments Malaysia expects to launch its e-wallet this year, having secured a conditional approval for a large scheme electronic money license. This will support its Islamic digital bank ambition.
As it is still working on meeting the conditional requirements set by Bank Negara Malaysia, the start-up has yet to disclose its full product proposition, although the public can preregister for the beta program. But what is for sure is that it will be operating within a highly competitive digital wallet space. There are 48 other licensed e-money issuers aggressively grabbing market share in the nation of 31 million.
The conditional approval follows a RM12 million (US$2.92 million) seed round closed in September 2020, which the firm said put MyMy’s value at over RM50 million (US$12.16 million).
“Since receiving our investment from Koperasi Tentera, we have been working diligently on utilizing digital financial services for the betterment of the cooperative community and the larger population covering the different segments of our multicultural Malaysians,” Tunku Ahmad Burhannudin, the chairman of MyMy, said, while affirming that its plans to become a Shariah compliant digital bank “is still within our sights and will take its form with the right conditions set by our committee and our consortium partners”.
In March, MyMy partnered with Sukaniaga, the operator of the MyAzZahra cooperative financing portal, to form an Islamic digital banking consortium to bid for the digital bank licenses the central bank will be issuing in March 2022.
For the co-founders, Kishore Samuel and Joe McGuire, the conditional approval is an important milestone for the company to becoming Malaysia’s first unicorn.
“We want to become the Revolut of ASEAN. We started in Malaysia and are committed to building and remaining a key member of the local ecosystem,” Samuel and McGuire said.