Data analytics remain the long term aim for Digi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd’s (Digi) introducing its e-wallet application, vcash, apart from providing Malaysians with an easy way to pay, send request and store money in their smartphones.
Speaking to The Borneo Post in an exclusive interview, Digi’s chief marketing officer Loh Keh Jiat said that the data derived from vcash users and merchants is extremely valuable as it would be useful in providing industry and market insights that Digi can then leverage off on.
“With these insights, we can do practically anything as there are many ways to utilise them but we will be focusing primarily on utilising those insights to help us understand and engage our customer’s better,” he said on the sidelines of the new cashless airport initiative at Kuching International Airport (KIA) undertaken by Malaysian Airports Holdings Bhd on Monday.
Merchants at KIA are now offering vcash as a digital payment option for their patrons and Digi expects the usage of vcash to begin catching up outside of KIA.
Meanwhile, Digi’s chief corporate affairs officer Joachim Rajaram explained that one way the group could leverage off such insights is by crafting and providing consumers with better loyalty offers and rewards that would better suit their wants and needs.
“Merchants utilising vcash would also benefit because the problem with a lot of merchants today is that they don’t know who their customers are, whether they are repeat customers, where they are spending and at what frequency.
“These are just some of the information that merchants cannot find out from their cash customers.
“We can’t give or sell them our data but we can advise them on what the peak time for promotion is or what products and deals their consumers are most interested in based on our consumption trends,” Loh added.
Before any of that, Digi needs to get the ball rolling on the adoption of vcash. Bayond its presence at KIA, Loh guided that Digi will focus on more partnerships with large retailers as well as education of the e-wallet app to both retailers and end-users to drive adoption rates.
“We aim to engage big retailers and get them on board because consumers will only be interested if there are more retailers offering vcash as a payment option, and retailers will only be more interested if more consumers have actively using it.
“If we manage to get some major retailers on board, then the entire chain will begin to adapt.”
Adding to that, Joachim said that adoption of vcash by merchants would also be an attractive option as vcash is a high value proposition service with low barriers of adoption.
“We do not charge a fee so there is almost no cost of investment for most merchants, only larger merchants would end up with some cost of integration at their point of sale,” he explained.
To convince consumers on why they should use vcash, Joachim believes that the obvious perks of having a cashless payment application will speak for itself to the wider public as carrying cash has always been cumbersome, inconvenient and risky.
With an estimated RM97 million of cash in circulation, the argument for a cashless society has long been on the agenda of Bank Negara Malaysia as the cost savings and benefits generated from switching to cashless payments would help propel our economic efficiency to new heights.
