Visa Malaysia Confident Of Double-Digit Growth For Billing Transactions This Year

KUALA LUMPUR, March 13 (Bernama) -- Visa Malaysia is confident of posting double-digit growth for overall billing transactions this year which focus on online transactions and digital applications, especially expenditure from travel and retail segments. Last year, total billing transactions for both debit and credit cards in Malaysia stood at US$23 billion (US$1 = RM3.90), said Country Manager, Ng Kong Boon. "We are confident of organic growth this year for overall billing transactions and with today’s partnership with Corporate Information Travel Sdn Bhd (CIT), we optimistic of increasing our market share," he told reporters here Tuesday. Visa Malaysia teamed up with CIT to launch the ‘Pick A Trip’ application (app) platform. Ng said Visa Malaysia also targeted paywave transaction growth rate in Malaysia by between 25 per cent and 30 per cent this year from 20 per cent now. "Currently, for Hong Kong, Australia and Singapore, the penetrate rates stood at 70 per cent, 90 per cent and 50 per cent, respectively. We, unfortunately, started this transaction later than them. "But with zero fraud cases reported for this paywave transaction, we are confident of hitting the industry benchmark of 50 per cent by 2020 within the required time-frame," he said. On the partnership with CIT, Ng said, Visa was looking at 50,000 downloads of Pick-A-Trip within 30 million Visa cardholders in Malaysia for the first year of its launch. Pick-A -Trip, a travel mobile app exclusively for Visa Malaysia cardholders, allows them to search, select and compare prices from hundreds of airlines and hotels worldwide. He said based on WsaNet data, travel spending on e-commerce was growing faster than face-to-face and has increased 10 per cent year-on-year. "Our research has shown that Malaysians spent more than five hours a day on their mobile devices and based on the Global Travel Intentions study conducted by Visa, 72 per cent of Malaysians use their mobile devices to look up information in planning their trips," he said. CIT Executive Director, Foo Sze Zhaun, said with Pick-A-Trip, travellers would no longer need to download multiple apps from different airlines and manually compare the pricing and flight times. "Pick-A-Trip focuses on transforming the booking experience for travellers and is further enhanced with Visa's payment solution, Visa Checkout.‘ "Exclusive deals and offers are available on the apps for Visa cardholders," he said adding that the apps can be download at Google Play or iTunes app store,” Foo said. -- BERNAMA