Homegrown e-wallet app gets international boost

(From left) UnionPay International Co. Ltd Products Department director Shuan Ghaidan, Yang, Tiffin and Axiata Digital Services chief executive officer Mohd Khairil Abdullah at the MoU signing ceremony.

BOOST, Malaysia’s homegrown e-wallet app, has partnered with global payment brand UnionPay International (UPI) to expand its footprint in Malaysia and overseas.

Boost chief executive officer Christopher Tiffin said that the collaboration with UPI was part of its regional expansion plans.

“This partnership allows us to create relevance to merchants and customers both inside and outside Malaysia, by leveraging UnionPay’s international presence," he said at the MoU signing ceremony between Boost and UPI at Mandarin Oriental, Kuala Lumpur.

Boost is a leading e-wallet application with over 2.7 million users with online and offline merchants located at over 30,000 touchpoints nationwide.

Its key features include paying utility bills with partners such as Telekom Malaysia, Astro and Syabas, parking payments; instant rewards; donations; buying and gifting digital vouchers for online merchants, food and beverage outlets, entertainment, health and beauty.

“We are targetting to have 100,000 merchants in Malaysia by end of this year,” said Tiffin.

UnionPay International Co Ltd Products Department director Shuan Ghaidan said Boost users would be able to make payments at e-commerce quickly and easy using UnionPay QR code.

“They will enjoy privileges and exclusive benefits,” he added.

UPI, a China-based company, has 51 million merchants worldwide and serves the world’s largest card base of over seven billion.

Currently, there are 7.5 million UnionPay QR Code merchants globally, with the company announcing in May a massive rollout of EMV-compliant QRC terminals across different industries all over Malaysia.

UPI Southeast Asia general manager Wenhui Yang said, “This is also in line with our strategy to localise our business to better cater to the payment needs of Malaysian businesses and consumers.

“We have 2.57 million ATM machines that accept the card worldwide,” he added.

In Malaysia, UPI has teamed up with over 10 partners to enable acceptance, and partners Bank of China, Industrial and Com-mercial Bank of China and Public Bank Bhd to issue a wide range of payment products and services.

Android users can download Boost from the Play Store while iOS users can download it from the App Store.

For details, go to https://www.myboost.com.my/ or follow Boost on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/myboostapp/) and Instagram (http://www.instagram.com/myboostapp/).