KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 16 (Bernama) — Interbank GIRO (IBG) transactions performed through the Internet banking platforms of commercial banks will be enhanced with a feature akin to post-dated cheques by Dec 31, 2014, said the Association of Banks in Malaysia (ABM).
ABM Executive Director Chuah Mei Lin said this feature would allow both businesses and individuals to set payments on a specified date in the future, subject to the availability of sufficient funds on the said date.
“This will enable a business or individual to process payments with future payment dates, similar to post-dated cheques,” she told Bernama recently.
Chuah was responding to concerns voiced by various businesses that e-Payment is unable to replace post-dated cheques.
To accommodate the business community’s needs, she said, they could also transfer a maximum amount of RM1 million per transaction via IBG subject to availability of funds, the respective companies’ authorisation limits as well as individual banks’ terms and conditions.
“Banks may increase the transaction limit for IBG to at least the daily average cumulated cheque value issued by the customer and provide a facility for customers to increase the IBG transaction limit on a needs basis (with commensurate risk management controls),” Chuah said.
Other steps taken to encourage the adoption of e-payment include enabling IBG at selected Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), introducing security enhancements, establishing more internet kiosks at bank branches, and public awareness campaigns on the latest fraud cases and their modus operandi.
To encourage migration to e-payment, a 50 sen cheque processing fee would be imposed on each cheque issued effective Jan 2, 2015.
This fee, Chuah said, will be channelled to a fund under the e-Payment Incentive Fund (e-PIF) framework for e-Payment infrastructure development and to provide incentives to the banks’ customers to adopt e-payment.
“All this while, the banking industry has been absorbing the cost of the usage of cheques, including printing and dissemination cost amounting RM2 to RM3 per cheque, which is also a cost to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and economy.
“So the migration to e-Payment has to start somewhere. This is a phase that needs to be taken to reduce cheque usage and make it more cost-effective,” she said.
— BERNAMA
