E-wallet app Boost meets national, Sabah targets
Published on: Sunday, September 22, 2019
By: David Thien
KOTA KINABALU: Malaysia’s homegrown lifestyle e-wallet app “Boost” has met its national and Sabah region targets this year as more Malaysian consumers are starting to accept e-wallet as an alternative form of payment.
Launched in 2017, Boost is now one of the biggest cashless transaction players in Malaysia by the Axiata Group known for Celcom telco.
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In Sabah, Boost had signed up more than 7,000 business outlets and to reach 8,000 merchants to make up the more than 109,000 nationwide in cashless mobile payment experience for its 4.6 million users or “Boosties” who enjoy rewards like cash back, vouchers and other promotions.
Mohd Khairil Abdullah, Chief Executive Officer of Axiata Digital Services Sdn Bhd, the parent company of Boost, said Boost aims to revolutionise the way Malaysians transact in today’s increasingly digital and mobile world.
Through the understanding of consumer needs and use of cutting-edge technology, Boost makes transactions easier, faster, more secure and more rewarding. It targeted a 30-fold growth in gross transaction value (GTV) and the e-wallet weekly GTV as at end January this year and had grown 50 times over the same month a year ago.
In 2018, Boost grew its user-base by nearly six times. Axiata Digital is best known to consumers as the company behind e-wallet app Boost.
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Boost brings cashless convenience to everyone’s fingertips, both consumer and merchant. Boost helps to push businesses further by allowing merchants to receive payments and manage cash flow in just one place, whether they’re operating hawker stalls or retail outlets.
Mohd Khairil and Joseph Tsen, Boost’s head of Sabah region, invited journalists to suggest how it could help in charity work, after a period of phenomenal growth despite the seemingly softening retail sector. The Boost team will be going to Pulau Mantanani to clean up the environment.
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“Boost does not sign up business establishments like gambling set-ups. However, we have signed up with some mosques and churches in Sabah for their faithful to give to charity or tithe their income to their places of worship.”
Mohd Khairil spoke on the company’s mission to be an organisation with integrity and a corporate exemplar for the care of the environment and public interest. It offers micro-credit loans to its micro-enterprises merchants that commercial banks do not want to serve, as well as offering an insurance scheme to cover loss of income during period of illness.
The Axiata Group is aiming to get one of Malaysia’s virtual banking licences, just like e-hailing ride service company Grab aspires to be a fintech company.
Mohd Khairil is in charge of the group’s core digital business which includes Boost, the e-wallet service;
analytics.data.advertising (ada), the largest independent digital agency in the region and Apigate, an emerging global application program interface platform provider worth more than RM2 billion.
Boost’s partnership with UnionPay International (UPI), will allow the company to rapidly grow their merchant footprint nationwide as well as overseas including China in the future. Offering a suite of financial services could potentially help the company to recoup back the heavy cost of customer acquisition that is has undertaken in less than three years.
“I think competition is great as it educates the public about the use of e-wallet. I quite encourage sensible competition in the market as it helps grow the ecosystem,” Mohd Khairil said.
He opines that the market may move to consolidate to between three and five main players in the next two to three years with now over 40 e-money licensees in Malaysia as Boost hopes to close the year with a total of five million users.
There will still be other niche e-wallets that focus on specific segments like Maybank with its customers and Grab.
“Many e-wallet players may not have the capacity to sustain the business either financially or in terms of gaining user acceptance fast enough to remain relevant.
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