Over the past week, the Southeast Asian nation faced arguably the worst flooding in history in various parts of the country. 

Heavy monsoon rainfall besieged peninsular Malaysia’s inadequate drainage systems last weekend, which was especially devastating for people in the state of Selangor.

The floods have displaced over 60,000 people nationwide and have killed 27 people so far — the highest since the 2014 major floods. 

Inaccessible roads have also disrupted multiple supply chains across the nation.

Port Klang, in the state of Selangor, is Southeast Asia’s second-largest port, located in Klang. Klang also happened to be one of the worst-hit flood areas, together with neighboring township Shah Alam. 

The situation on the ground in certain parts of Shah Alam was so bad, that it had driven some victims to source food and water from closed convenience stores in the area, while others desperately cried for food and essentials atop the roofs of vehicles and houses.

Shah Alam also happens to be where a number of global semiconductor names have situated factories at. 

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As workers in these factories tend to live around the area, they have been struggling to either leave or enter their residences and workplaces.

BE Semiconductor, a Dutch supplier of chipmaking equipment had lowered its fourth-quarter revenue outlook on Monday as its main factory in Shah Alam was affected by the floods.

It had halted operations for product assemblies, with losses to the tune of US$28 million. 

“First estimates of one-time costs associated with materials and labor necessary to repair or reproduce any systems affected are in the range of 4 — 6 million euros and will be taken as a charge to fourth-quarter earnings,” said the group in a statement.  

The company did not disclose which of its clients would be affected by its closure, but a report by Reuters showed that Foxconn, STMicroelectronics, ASE, Forehope, Micron, and LG Innotek are among its list of existing customers.

This semiconductor supply chain disruption comes at an inopportune time, and just days after Intel unveiled its US$7 billion Malaysia chip factory plan. 

Malaysia is a major player in the global electronics supply chain and is a hub for semiconductor packaging — making up a tenth of the sector’s global trade.

However, the global Covid-19 pandemic had led to multiple strict lockdowns by the government over the past two years, preventing chip factories from being able to operate normally.

Additionally, the government’s lockdowns had severely restrained the manufacture and supply of aluminum capacitors this year. These capacitors are essential chip-related components in consumer and industry electronics such as EVs and computers, which further strained the global semiconductor shortage.

However, things may look up for both affected people and industries — the cargo congestion in Port Klang appears to be easing up, and lockdowns had ceased since September this year.

Nevertheless, industry experts and watchers are still nervous about the impact of the Omicron variant, which might cause yet another dent in the global semiconductor supply chain.

The post Malaysian floods disrupts semiconductor supply chain; devastates workers appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Managed by Korea’s Hanhwa Asset Management Co, the venture-debt fund was established under the Dana Penjana Nasional (DPN) program under the Malaysian Ministry of Finance. It is also Hanhwa’s first venture debt partnership in Malaysia.

The initial size of the pioneer venture-debt fund is RM160 million (US$40 million), with Malaysia’s Penjana Kapital contributing a portion of the monies, together with “other institutional and high net worth investors”. 

Investment into Singapore agritech Growthwell Group

The Iris Fund chose to make its maiden investment in Growthwell Group Pte. Ltd (Growthwell Foods). 

Established in Singapore in 1989, Growthwell Foods and has 30 years of experience in producing meat-free foods in Singapore and 10 other countries in the APAC region. 

Currently, the Group is utilizing agritech techniques to produce completely plant-based, nutritionally complete meat alternatives.

The company claims it goes “full force” into R&D and food technology, working with food scientists, researchers, nutritionists, and chefs backed by its expertise in understanding the needs of the Southeast Asian food market.

“We are extremely pleased to have global investors like Iris Fund onboard Growthwell as we look to scale up our plant nutrition business beyond Southeast Asia,” commented Growthwell executive director Justin Chou. “We will continue to trailblaze plant nutrition in Asia.”

Growthwell produces vegan plant-based brand HAPPIEE!, egg-free cooking ingredients brand OKK, and plant-based ready meal brand Gomama. 

The company plans to use these investments to expand its manufacturing facility in the northern state of Johor, Malaysia. This expansion is projected to create more job opportunities for Malaysians.

The Iris Fund was part of the $22 million Series A funding round by the company alongside other renowned investors, including Temasek Holdings Limited, Creadev, GGV Capital, and DSG Consumer Partners. 

What are venture debt funds?

Venture debt funds allow for more accessible financing options for early-stage startups with validated business models and clear market growth opportunities, including minimizing shareholding dilution, enhancing financial liquidity, and providing support for fundraising rounds throughout the region. 

This allows companies to maintain more autonomy over their assets while providing access to financing that will allow them to grow significantly over shorter periods of time.

“While the Iris Fund isn’t limited to specific sectors or funding stages, we do look for companies with comprehensive business plans and projections that have clear strategies for long-term growth prospects. 

The Fund is aimed to diversify capital sources for startups and help strengthen the financing opportunities in South East Asia,” said Dato’ Wan Kamaruzaman Wan Ahmad, Chairman of the Iris Fund.

 “This inaugural venture represents the Group’s strong belief in the growth of the region. The fund will be the first of many partnerships with Iris Capital Partners as the Group is looking to invest more in Malaysia and Southeast Asia,” said Kimo Kim, Partner at the Iris Fund. 

“This fund aims to offer more accessible financing to startups and SMEs – while allowing founders to control their dilution better”, added Kim.

The post Msia’s first venture debt fund invests in S’porean agritech appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

In what appears like a desperate attempt to bring Malaysian telcos on board, Reuters reported today that the Finance Ministry’s special purpose vehicle, Digital Nasional Berhad (DNB), has announced that it will offer wholesale 5G services to mobile carriers at no cost.

In a statement, the state agency claimed that 5G services will be commercially available from 15 December onwards in three central areas, including parts of Kuala Lumpur. 

This offer to allow all operators to be part of its network for free will take place during the initial 5G rollout period taking place next week — and will be valid up to 31 March 2022. 

DNB is seeking to finalize its wholesale agreements with carriers during this period and hopes to sign long-term contracts with them by early 2022.

As reported by Reuters, an RAO (Reference Access Offer) will be approved by Malaysia’s communications regulator soon following extensive feedback from the industry. 

An RAO is a public document that will cover the details of the DNB’s 5G wholesale model, including pricing and service commitments.

Operators that sign up to its wholesale plan before March 31 will receive further free access to all additional 5G capacity during the initial period of operation, it said.

It also reiterated that its 5G pricing plan would be cheaper for mobile carriers than the cost they have incurred for 4G.

Telcos have said under the proposed pricing plan, they could end up paying more than they would have if they introduced 5G on their own, as the plan did not take into account additional requirements related to issues such as traffic volume and contingency costs, added Reuters.

Malaysia, a Southeast Asian country of 32 million has been wracked with multiple obstacles to its 5G deployment, falling sharply behind its ASEAN peers. 

With less than a month to the country’s once-deferred 5G rollout plans, reluctance by multiple local carriers to be integrated has been a thorn in DNB’s side. 

In November, none of the country’s major telcos have signed any agreement to use the Ericsson-built and designed network infrastructure due to transparency and pricing issues.

Telekom Malaysia Bhd on Saturday, however, became the first operator to sign up for 5G trials with DNB.

Malaysia’s 5G approach an industry first

From as early as July this year, local telcos had voiced strong sentiments against the very way the government had chosen to handle the deployment of a nationwide 5G network. 

To recall, the main contention point revolved around the anti-competitive nature of allowing only a single entity — i.e. 5G operator DNB, the rights to own all the 5G spectrums within and as well as the Ericsson-designed and built infrastructure. 

Previously, 2G, 3G, and 4G spectrums in Malaysia were allocated to telcos, allowing them to own their own spectrums and price their packages competitively.

However this time, DNB would retain ownership of the entire 5G spectrum, in what appears to be a bid to turn it into a leased “shared commodity”, and theoretically reduce overall costs — at the price of ownership by telcos. This is, however, reportedly disputed by telcos and industry players, mainly due to the lack of pricing transparency.

Telcos around the world commonly bid for or are allocated spectrums, so the Malaysian government’s stance on 5G spectrum allocations would be an industry first. Individual ownership of networking spectrums often results in more competitive prices for consumers.

Critics maintained that multiple roll-out contracts to different vendors, spectrum auctions, and a second 5G network alongside DNB’s should be the course of action, in line with global norms, a sentiment shared by global mobile operator cooperative GSMA.

The post Has Malaysia’s 5G operator DNB finally given in to telcos? appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

This news comes with a little more than a month left to its former plan to rollout commercial 5G services in a few states by the end of 2021. 

DNB had, earlier this year, confidently announced the roll-out of 5G services in three Malaysian states by end of 2021, with plans to roll out to other states by 2023. 

In a report by Reuters, none of the country’s major telcos have signed an agreement to use the Ericsson-built and designed network infrastructure due to “transparency and pricing issues”, according to “state agency and industry executives”. 

In July this year, DNB had awarded an RM11 billion (US$1.7 billion) project to Swedish telecomms multinational Ericsson to design, build and maintain the 5G infrastructure in Malaysia.

5G for Malaysia delayed… again

Malaysia falls behind some of its ASEAN peers such as Singapore, and Vietnam, among others,  in terms of 5G rollout. Previous plans estimated commercial 5G deployment to be in the third quarter of 2020 due to the nullification of spectrum allocations.  

DNB acknowledged that its initial timeline for negotiations had been “too optimistic”. 

DNB is a special-purpose vehicle (SPV) established by the Malaysian Ministry of Finance in March 2021 to roll out infrastructure and 5G network deployment nationwide. 

This approach, announced by former Malaysia Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, is opposed to assigning spectrum to individual telcos or consortiums.

According to the Reuters report, DNB will be seeking formal long-term agreements in early 2022 as it continues negotiations to follow up on its plan to deploy 5G in three states in Malaysia in December. 

“The target now is to have a live network, covering… a total of 500 sites by the end of December, with at least some operators on board to provide a 5G network to end-users,” Chief Technology Officer Ken Tan said. DNB made no mention of plans of action should these negotiations fail to bring onboard any MNOs.

The ire of local telcos

Earlier this year, sentiments by local telco players skewed negative, with main contention points revolving around the anti-competition nature of awarding all the 5G spectrums to a single entity, i.e. DNB. 

Critics maintain that multiple roll-out contracts to different vendors, spectrum auctions, and a second 5G network alongside DNB’s should be the course of action, in line with global norms.

This sentiment is shared by global mobile operator cooperative GSMA, which warned that a single vendor award would not be in line with DNB’s aim of ‘better and cheaper 5G services’ due to a lack of market competition.

Several telcos have already invested in infrastructure upgrades to support 5G services, but are concerned about a “nationalized monopoly”. According to current and former industry sources who declined to be named in the Reuters report, this arrangement would eventually hurt their bottom lines and restrict their access to future tech.

These sources further estimated that up to RM 45 billion (US$10.8 billion) in market value could be “destroyed across all mobile operators”, including the Big Three — Axiata Group, DiGi, and Maxis.

“By 2030, the majority of the network will be on 5G, then there are enforced limitations on our existing (non-5G network) assets,” one of the sources said to Reuters.

“Successful 5G integration” of telcos in Malaysia?

With that said, however, at a DNB event on Wednesday, the agency claimed successful integration of five MNOs into its 5G network, with a sixth planned for a later date, reported Edge Markets.

DNB asserts its spectrum pricing will be “non-discriminatory” and be the same for all MNOs. According to chief commercial officer Ahmad Taufek Omar, MNOs are being charged “only as a form of cost recovery”.

Omar clarified that their pricing model is composed of three mechanisms, namely coverage capacity; additional capacity, and buffer capacity. 

However, he acknowledged that prices may differ based on the size of the MNO. 

“… bigger MNOs will have larger requirements and therefore prices will be affected. But once we give the bigger MNO that [modified] price, the other MNOs can also request for the same price. There is no such thing as a different price for each MNO”.

Omar failed to disclose the actual costs of the pricing, however.

Chief executive Ralph Marshall also stated that the network would be capable of integrating up to 12 MNOs by next year. 

The post Did Malaysia’s 5G operator fail to woo local telcos in time? appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

For years, Malaysia’s lack of initiative in providing exemptions on EV taxes has made the emerging economy of 32 million lag behind its regional peers like Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, and even Vietnam.

This all changed last week during the government’s announcement of the 2022 National Budget last Friday. In its budget speech, they announced a 100% elimination of all taxes on EVs in Malaysia, including import and excise duties, as well as road tax.

“These are energy-efficient vehicles meant to reduce gas emissions, hence to aid the local industry we want to give them exemptions from import, excise, and road taxes. These are 100% tax exemptions,” announced Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz during his official address in Parliament.

Can eliminating Malaysia’s EV taxes jumpstart demand?

Prior to this, Malaysia had taken nary an action to make EVs affordable and enticing to buyers, such as offering price incentives or exemptions on taxes.

Additionally, the country suffers from an abysmal lack of infrastructural support for EVs, especially essential charging stations.

The government’s chronic lack of initiative in addressing the lack of essential EV infrastructure has even led some private players to take it upon themselves to build 1,000 EV charging stations across the nation by 2025.

In 2020, Malaysia launched its automotive industry roadmap, the National Automotive Policy (NAP) — but experts have been criticizing it for its lack of definition.

A report by Maybank Investment Research highlighted how the roadmap did not provide specifics regarding any incentives for industry players, nor any concrete details on the then-nascent New National Car Project (NNCP) — which has now gone silent.

That said, there are currently no heavy incentives from local governments to persuade Malaysians to own battery electric vehicles. Hybrid cars, on the other hand, have been selling well in Malaysia due to affordability (better tax incentives), availability of after-sales services, and increased driving range, among others.

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Aside from 100% tax exemptions on EV next year, there will also be an income tax relief of up to RM2,500 for those who have purchased, rented, or have been paying to charge their electric vehicle — should the budget be passed.

For foreign-made cars that are imported into Malaysia, the 100% duty exemption would be applicable up to December 31, 2023. Meanwhile, locally assembled cars will be entitled to the same exemption until the end of 2025.

BMW Group Malaysia managing director Hans de Visser told a local media The Star that these tax incentives will not only increase uptake of EVs but also encourage further development of EV infrastructures and ecosystems to drive smarter, low-carbon communities and cities in the country.

But will tax exemptions be enough to drive widespread adoption?

BMW, currently Malaysia’s leading provider of premium EVs, has delivered over 21,000 electrified BMW and MINI cars in Malaysia, according to de Visser.

Unfortunately, Malaysia appears to have more premium and luxury EVs, but only has a very limited range of more affordable options. 

A report by Paul Tan stated that the only somewhat affordable EV available in Malaysia is by Nissan and is priced at RM181,000 — a figure that is far from affordable to the average Malaysian. 

To put things into perspective, the median annual income for the average working adult in Malaysia is approximately RM25,000 — in 2021. It is thus unsurprising that the developing nation is still highly focused on manufacturing cars powered by internal combustion engines.

This massive cost and accessibility barrier to EV adoption is clearly not something that mere tax exemptions alone can solve. Nevertheless, it is an encouraging move on the government’s part, still. 

Clearer, better defined, and realistic policies and plans which are long overdue would surely contribute to spurring increased uptake of EVs in the country. 

Improving EV-conducive infrastructure should be a priority, as well as providing support to incentivize automakers to pile investments locally, instead of relying on neighboring countries. 

The post Malaysia’s getting rid of EV taxes, but will it be enough? appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

The automotive industry has already been hit by numerous delays due to the global crisis while manufacturing companies have also had to cut down on orders because they are unable to deliver products on time.

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In the beginning, the shortage was partly due to stronger demand for more advanced chips from the consumer electronics and computer industry through Covid-19. For context, worldwide semiconductor sales declined between 2018 and 2019, but by 2020, sales grew 6.5%. The rapid growth continued into 2021, and according to trade organization the Semiconductor Industry Association, sales for May 2021 were 26% higher than the same time last year.

As such, Bosch plans to invest more than than 400 million euros in expanding its wafer fabs in Dresden and Reutlingen, Germany, and its semiconductor operations in Penang, Malaysia. The expenditures and chip testing operations are expected to begin next year.

According to Dr. Volkmar Denner, chairman of the board of management of Robert Bosch GmbH, “Demand for chips is continuing to grow at breakneck speed. In light of current developments, we are systematically expanding our semiconductor production so we can provide our customers with the best possible support.”

(Source – Bosch)

While most of the capital expenditure is earmarked for Bosch’s new 300-millimeter wafer fab in Dresden, where manufacturing capacity is to be expanded even faster in 2022, around 50 million euros of the planned sum will be spent on the wafer fab in Reutlingen near Stuttgart in the coming year. Bosch will also invest a total of 150 million euros in additional clean-room space here from 2021 to 2023.

In Penang, Malaysia, Bosch is building a test center for semiconductors from scratch. Starting in 2023, the center will test finished semiconductor chips and sensors.

“These planned investments demonstrate once again the strategic importance of having our own manufacturing capacity for the core technology of semiconductors,” Denner says.

With the highly automated and connected factory set to perform testing of semiconductor chips and sensors in 2023, Bosch has more than 100,000 square meters of land available on Penang’s mainland strip, which will be developed in stages.

The test center will cover an area of around 14,000 square meters. It will include clean rooms, office space, research and development, and training facilities for up to 400 associates. Earthworks for the new location started at the end of 2020, and work on the buildings began in May 2021.

The additional testing capacity in Penang is also intended to open up the possibility of locating new technologies in Bosch’s wafer fabs in the future, such as silicon carbide semiconductors in Reutlingen. In addition, the new location in Asia will shorten delivery times and distances for the chips.

Malaysia to solve the chip shortage crisis?

Interestingly, Malaysia is currently one of the top ten countries in the semiconductor industry, accounting for about 7% of the global semiconductor trade and about 13% of the global capacity in terms of back-end assembly tests and packaging. However, the country has suffered a series of Covid-19 inducted factory shutdowns that have impacted the overall supply chain.

A Reuters report stated that some chip factories are operating at lower capacity due to risks of mass infections on factory floors that could lead to an entire plant shutdown. But things are slowly improving as the country is also bouncing back from the pandemic with high vaccination rates in the population and some economic sectors being allowed to operate at full capacity.

Taiwan is the biggest chip provider with more than 50% of the market share, followed by China, the United States, and then Malaysia, which is home to suppliers and factories serving chipmakers such as STMicroelectron and Infineon as well as carmakers including Toyota, Ford, and General Motors.

For Bosch, having recognized the potential of microelectronics much earlier on has given them the expertise needed to have a competitive advantage with its strength in semiconductor manufacturing. In fact, the technology and services company has been producing semiconductor components in Reutlingen since 1970. They are used in both consumer electronics and automotive applications.

“Bosch can draw on its specific semiconductor and automotive expertise to develop superior electronic systems. This benefits our customers and the countless people who want to continue to enjoy safe and efficient mobility in the future,” said Harald Kroeger, member of the board of management of Robert Bosch GmbH.

The company is currently producing chips for its power tools. For automotive customers, chip production started in September, three months earlier than planned. Despite many predicting the chip shortage crisis to likely drag on to 2022, Bosch seems optimistic that they can provide some relief to the global shortage.

The post Bosch expands semiconductor operations to handle chip shortage crisis appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

In fact, the facial recognition system market is expected to reach US$8.5 billion by 2025. Major factors driving the growth of the technology include heightened interest in the surveillance industry — particularly by government, and sectors charged with defense initiatives.

Despite some initial flaws in the system, the technology continues to innovate, thanks to advances in AI algorithms that are improving the recognition system. Across Southeast Asia, various industries have already installed facial recognition systems to improve their security and convenient users.

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For example in Singapore, citizens can use their faces to gain access to various government services. The country specifically allows people to use facial recognition to log into their accounts when taking advantage of Singapore’s comprehensive SingPass digital identity program.

In Malaysia, facial recognition is slowly replacing physical travel documents such as airline tickets and boarding passes for faster and safer passenger authentication at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

(Source – NTech Lab)

All this forward momentum has led NtechLab, a global leader in video analytics, to introduce its FindFace Multi, a groundbreaking tool that accurately detects faces and silhouettes of people, and identifies cars in real-time video streams in Malaysia.

With algorithms designed to help organizations and businesses make better decisions, the tech empowers governments and security services to act with greater speed and confidence, and provides commercial companies with richer audience analytics.

The system works by using an intelligent criteria-based facial search whereby the system can detect and track persons of interest in a split second. It also has high levels of accuracy in detecting faces when they are partially covered with medical masks or clothes.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has required everyone to wear masks in most places, most facial recognition systems are unable to detect the entire face. Many are often fitted with thermal scanners to only detect temperatures and such.

The silhouette recognition by NtechLab enables the identification of people by the color of clothes and accessories. For vehicle recognition, the technology identifies the type of body, color, manufacturer, and model of a car. It works even if license plates, or part of the car, are not visible.

According to Andrei Telenkov, the CEO of NtechLab,  “Malaysia is a very important country to our business portfolio and will significantly expand our presence in the growing field of video analytics. The entry into Malaysia supports NtechLab’s strategic business decision and global growth strategy campaign aimed at winning new markets in the Gulf region, Latin America and Southeast Asia.”

NtechLab’s face recognition system has also been adopted by Indian Railways in a major strategic move to enhance critical planning and slash crime rates. The system will be used on the busiest section of the Indian Railways and ensure simultaneous recognition of up to 50 people in a single frame. The successful completion of the project adds India to the list of 30 countries that are already using the technology.

The post Increasing demand for facial recognition system technology in Malaysia appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

For the uninitiated, financial wellness (a.k.a financial wellbeing) is an individual’s overall financial health and can be achieved through prudent expense management. 

Increased spending on digitalization by Malaysian banks

It was found in a recent Forrester Consulting study (commissioned by Backbase) that 64% of Malaysian retail banking decision-makers said their company is increasing spending on digital and engagement financial wellness initiatives. 

Interestingly, this is the highest figure in the APAC region, and more than Singapore, Japan, or Australia.

The retail banking sector in the country appears to be gearing up for intense competition in the digital banking space. To recall, Malaysia’s central bank, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), closed applications for digital banking licenses in early July. Over 40 applications were received, where only five would receive the much-coveted license next year.  

According to Forrester’s research, the sector is seeking to address increased consumer demand for digital banking, especially for financial wellness and digital money management. 

Of the banking business decision-makers interviewed, 90% said they were planning to or actively expanding their digital money management tools. Additionally, 88% said that they were planning to or actively expanding their financial wellness and digital money management tools — with almost half of them saying it was critical. 

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Tellingly, the report found that 82% of users conduct their day-to-day banking via their smartphones. Additionally, 67% of consumers used their institution’s existing mobile app, with 87% believing that an excellent mobile app is an attribute they value from financial services providers. 

 “The window of opportunity for banks to build out their digital offerings is right now and the recent report revealed Malaysians have an insatiable appetite for digital offerings”, shared Backbase Regional Vice President in the Asia Pacific, Iman Ghodosi, further opining that the next six months would be a “critical inflection point” within the Malaysian digital banking space.

“The urgency and focus behind this are clear – Malaysia has five of the hottest digital banks waiting to explode into the banking scene and take market share next year, and the traditional banks are worried,” he added.

 According to Ghodosi, Malaysians are demanding better customer service and flexibility in financial services. Time is of the essence — they want to access personal finances anytime, anywhere, and through any channel, but unfortunately, existing tools by traditional banks aren’t adequate enough to meet their needs.

 “Now more than ever, it’s important to own the relationship with your customer. We’ve entered the Engagement Banking Era, an evolution that stresses a one unified platform approach for banking. 

“The number one priority in this new era is to completely re-architect the bank around the customer, moving away from siloed technology investments.”, added Ghodosi.

Malaysian banks facing highest digitalization challenges in APAC

 The report shed light on how Malaysian banks are coping — 74% of interviewees agreed that not being able to understand customer needs and outcomes are a barrier to their digitalization efforts. 

Unsurprisingly, 66% bemoaned legacy or outdated technologies, and 64% agreed that organizational silos impeded these efforts as well.

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“There’s also a lack of understanding at legacy institutions in Malaysia on who owns the budget for these types of initiatives. Is it considered customer experience? Is it a corporate strategy? Or is it marketing? When in fact it is all three, and more”, added Ghodosi.

The state of the financial wellbeing of Malaysians

According to a paper by the Credit Counselling and Debt Management Agency (AKPK), “Financial Behaviour And State Of Financial Well-Being Of Malaysian Working Adults”, financial well-being relates to the ability to make ends meet, feeling comfortable with one’s current financial position, and having financial resilience.

In the AKPK paper, Malaysians of working age barely passed (6.1 points) the “surviving range” (6.0 – 8.0) for financial wellbeing, on a scale of 0.0 to 8.0. Females and older workers generally scored better than their counterparts. 

Unsurprisingly, the higher the income, the higher the financial wellbeing of the individual, with those earning over RM10,000 monthly scoring 7.32 points.

For the ASEAN emerging economy of 32 million, the mean monthly income for workers stands at around RM2,900 in 2020, down nine percent from RM3,200 in 2019, according to statistics from the department of statistics Malaysia (DOSM);  no doubt as a result of the pandemic.

The importance of financial literacy

According to Backbase, a key motivation behind increasing financial literacy isn’t exactly about profit, but the increased capacity of banks to “care and protect their customers”.

Malaysian banks are increasingly leveraging technology such as AI, data analytics, and mobile apps to recommend financial services and improve user engagement. Naturally, consumer digital trust in legacy Malaysian banks is much higher than in their newer digital counterparts.

“Banks can offer so much value through these engaging digital services, while at the same time collecting valuable data from users,” said Ghodosi.

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 He added, “Our research points to digital money management apps being the primary interface between institutions and their customers as we move into the future. Consumer demand and industry sentiment show that we are only at the start of the journey.

According to Backbase, spending analyses, bill payment scheduling, advanced pay and income smoothing, automated savings, and retirement planning tools are some of the digital features that Malaysian banks can implement to meet consumer needs.

“The competition is going to get fierce in Malaysia and that means the most important party, the consumer, will benefit long term. Time and market forces will tell which players will be the winners in the war for engagement in banking.”

The post The financial wellness war – Malaysian banks vs digital banks appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

The global telehealth market is expected to reach US$ 636 billion by 2028 with growing adoption in online consultation, behavioral health, cardiology, and radiology driving it. More startups in the field are also contributing to the growth globally.

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Digital telemedicine and telehealth platforms are becoming increasingly in demand in the Asia Pacific region as well. Almost all countries in Southeast Asia have telehealth and telemedicine providers to cater to the growing demand.

In Singapore, there are at least nine telemedicine providers that are currently supporting thousands of patients isolated under home recovery and quarantine orders. More providers are expected to be tapped in as cases continue to increase in the island nation.

But it’s not just developed countries like Singapore that are seeing an increasing demand for telemedicine. Myanmar has also been seeing an increasing demand for telemedicine services. Despite several providers in the market, the high number of cases created opportunities for more telemedicine providers as well.

(source – DOC2US)

Telemedicine in Myanmar

As such, Malaysian telemedicine provider, DOC2US is expanding its services to Myanmar via a technical partnership with HOPE Telecare. HOPE Telecare is Myanmar’s all-in-one digital healthcare platform that provides free online healthcare services by volunteer doctors. DOC2US will help accelerate the development of the digital healthcare ecosystem in Myanmar.

According to Dr. Raymond Choy, Chief Executive Officer of DOC2US, the joint venture is the first step for DOC2US to extend our locally developed technology and healthcare solution to countries beyond Malaysia.

“By replicating DOC2US’ existing proven system and business model with “hyper-localized” elements, together with our partners, we aim to complement the physical healthcare ecosystem in Myanmar by freeing up physical medical resources to those who need it,” said Dr. Raymond.

With COVID-19 cases continuing to rise in Myanmar, more state resources need to be channeled to combat the infection spread. The joint venture had earlier called for volunteer doctors to join its virtual health advisory task force to reduce the burden on the public healthcare system. The service would allow the general public to obtain virtual medical consultations for free.

Htun Htun Naing, Chairman of HOPE Telecare, said, “About 70% of our close to 55 million population are living in the rural area where doctors are not easily found, while our internet penetration rate is growing at more than 10% year-on-year from the current 43%, we believe telemedicine is the way forward to improve the quality of care in the country.”

To ensure the technology works seamlessly, DOC2US is leveraging Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform for better flexibility and scalability. DOC2US also provides HOPE with a robust backend system that runs and supports the digital healthcare platform to the frontend where users connect with healthcare professionals and get important health tips and other information.

For the upcoming phases, DOC2US will be incorporating its blockchain technology in the electronic health record, artificial intelligence, and digital signature system to further enhance HOPE’s offerings.

“With the successful rollout in Myanmar, we are actively talking to other partners in our neighboring countries such as Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam to improve the accessibility to healthcare in those countries. Nevertheless, we are also putting more resources in Malaysia to grow the market share and establish a better ecosystem in Southeast Asia with our strategic partners,” added Dr Raymond.

Even when the virus ultimately becomes manageable, the success of telemedicine services will see the demand for more services in the future. Patients would feel more secure to receive medical advice and diagnosis virtually wherever possible.

At the same time, the increasing usage of medical wearables is enabling doctors to have a better understanding of their patients as they can access these data in real-time and make a medical diagnosis based on it.

The post Myanmar relying on digital healthcare and telemedicine to deal with COVID-19 appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

While most automated solutions are often used to automate mundane and repetitive tasks, these jobs are often not favorable by most employees. Most employees today prefer to work on high-value work and want tasks that are not mundane and repetitive.

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According to a 2020 Forrester report commissioned by Red Hat, automation is fast becoming an organizational necessity. In fact, three out of five respondents reported automation as one of their firms’ top initiatives, even amid competing priorities like the adoption of cloud, containers, and security management.

Automation can be applied to almost any repeatable process in any industry today. The manufacturing industry is often regarded as the one to use automation technology the most. However, other industries are also now seeing increased usage of automation solutions.

Financial service organizations like banks are not looking to deploy automated solutions to automate repetitive and manual tasks as well as orchestrate complex workflows and improve processes. Most banks have legacy infrastructures to deal with. Not only are these infrastructures unable to scale, but most of them are also unable to support the growing data and applications in banking.  With automation, banks can be agile in deploying new applications faster with minimal human interventions.

Automation solutions in banking 

 In Southeast Asia, two major banks are leveraging the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform together with Red Hat Open Shift in their automation journey. Alliance Bank Malaysia and Asian Development Bank (ADB) Philippines are using automation to help mitigate the complexity of rapid adjustments in operational domains and environments and provide faster responses to changing business requirements.

According to Josep Garcia, vice president and general manager for growth and emerging markets, Red Hat, 2021 has demonstrated that organizations need to accelerate, rather than pause, their digital transformation efforts. A key part of this journey should be network automation, which allows users to manage policy, enforcement, and processes at the domain level.

He explained that several financial organizations in ASEAN are deploying Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform to automate applications and IT infrastructure while providing a simple language to help facilitate DevOps practices. Automation allows organizations to architect intelligently with their existing infrastructure while bringing legacy IT toward a cloud-native future.

For Alliance Bank Malaysia, the bank wanted to automate manual tasks such as server configuration, patching, and hardening to free up team bandwidth away from resource-heavy tasks. Alliance Bank started with server hardening and patching and then added disaster recovery (DR) automation to protect their core systems and build readiness as their hybrid cloud environment expanded.

(Photo by Saeed KHAN / AFP)

They automated the DR process with Red Hat and created a playbook to make this process repeatable and scalable. Now, Alliance Bank’s applications resulted in better uptime when they run DR processes. The efficiency and speed offered by process automation also mean the IT team can spend more time focusing on better customer experience and continuous innovation.

“As Alliance Bank competes in a fast-moving and dynamic financial services marketplace, automation increasingly becomes an essential component of our cloud infrastructure. By expanding our automation capabilities, we can free up our resources to implement new processes and applications and to upscale,” said Ken Yong, Head, group transformation office, Alliance Bank Malaysia Berhad.

Meanwhile, ADB in the Philippines was looking to improve operational efficiency and effectiveness by automating repetitive tasks. As ADB uses a hybrid environment with workloads running on-premise virtualization platforms, the bank wanted to focus on the consistency of automation of on-premises, extending to the public cloud.

“As we use both public and private clouds, we needed a solution that would allow us to provision our infrastructure like a tap – turn it on, higher, or off as needed. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform allowed us to build a secure infrastructure that’s supported by automation. Ansible also gives us a common language, documentation, and developer toolset to make the process more efficient,” said Krista Lozada, senior IT specialist (innovation & engineering), Asian Development Bank.

While both these financial institutions represent examples of early adopters for infrastructure automation technology, other financial services and businesses are also beginning to adopt automation solutions in organizations to support business growth while increasing resiliency and reliability.

The post Can automation solutions enable banks to accelerate their cloud journey? appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.