Retailers are partnering the 3 main e-wallet operators — offering various cash rebates and incentives to woo buyers to spend on their products and services

by ASILA JALIL/ pic by RAZAK GHAZALI

BUSINESSES are jumping on the e-wallet bandwagon and taking advantage of the allocated RM450 million offered under the e-Tunai Rakyat scheme to boost sales and gain new markets.

These retailers are partnering with three main e-wallet operators chosen by the government under the scheme. They have offered various cash rebates and other incentives to woo buyers to spend on their products and services.

Local burger chain myBurgerLab for example, is offering a 20% discount with a minimum spend of RM30 when users pay using Boost and GrabPay e-wallets until Jan 23.

Telecommunications operator DiGi.Com Bhd is offering additional rewards for prepaid users who will get up to 9GB of data when they top up with any of the e-wallet operators. Digi’s campaign will run until Feb 29 and users can get free data with a minimum reload of RM10.

The three selected e-wallet operators — GrabPay, Touch ‘n Go (TNG) and Boost — are also offering additional incentives to woo recipients to their platforms.

Boost had offered one Shake Reward worth up to RM8,888 for Malaysians who chose its platform for the e-Tunai Rakyat scheme. The winner will be rewarded RM888.80 monthly for a total of 10 months.

Boost is also rewarding its customers an additional RM18 for every five individuals they refer the e-wallet operator to. Users will earn RM3 for each successful referral and RM6 for the fifth referral. This reward is only limited to the first 200,000 referrals.

Meanwhile, GrabPay too did not want to miss the fun. It is offering vouchers from various partner merchants. Users will receive RM5 discount vouchers where the first 10,000 applicants will receive vouchers up to RM270. Applicants No 10,0001 to No 110,000 are entitled to vouchers worth RM120 and the rest will get vouchers worth up to RM20.

As of Jan 19, the first two tiers of the vouchers offered by GrabPay have been fully redeemed.

TNG offered an additional RM30 in e-wallet credit to those who claim using its platform via cashback.

Since the launch of the initiative on Jan 15, TNG has reached nine million registered users and the company expects the figure to rise.

“We are forecasting our registered users will continue to grow in the next couple of weeks at a fast pace,” TNG Digital CEO Ignatius Ong told The Malaysian Reserve yesterday.

GrabPay MD Ooi Huey Tyng said one in two applicants are new users of GrabPay, which includes conversion of the app’s cash-based users to the e-wallet system since the scheme started.

She said GrabPay’s daily active users have also jumped by 50% since the launch.

“In addition, 50% of our users who received the RM30 disbursement have already made a transaction, in which over 70% spent at our GrabPay merchants.

“We are very encouraged by these numbers and with the support and push from the government and the industry as a whole, we anticipate these numbers will increase in the coming days,” Ooi said in the statement.

Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng (picture; third from left) recently said the majority of the users spent the RM30 on groceries, telecommunications, transportation and food.

Lim said 4.8 million applications were received with 3.5 million that have been approved. A total amount of RM105 million have been spent since the launch.