It will benefit Malaysia through greater efficiency and productivity, thereby enhancing our country’s competitiveness. We have no choice but to improve the way we conduct our financial affairs. The banking system has allocated huge amount of resources. From 2009 to 2017, the industry has invested RM893 million to enhance the e-payment infrastructure. Moving forward, the industry will invest a further RM346 million to expand the POS terminal network and RM40 million to develop the Real-time Retail Payments Platform to spur the usage of mobile payments. By the end of 2020, it is envisaged that individuals and businesses will be able to make and receive payments seamlessly via online banking, payment cards and mobile payments. There 3/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  are no reasons whatsoever for us not to migrate from a costly and inefficient payment mechanism to a cheaper, safer and more efficient payment mode. To reflect the higher cheque processing cost, hasten the migration away from cheques, and incentivise individuals and businesses to migrate to a lower cost of doing business, beginning 2 January 2021, the cheque fee will be increased from 50 sen to RM1.00 and gradually thereafter, to reflect the actual cost of cheque processing. However, users of financial services will continue to be given a choice of using cheques, if they prefer to use an expensive and inefficient option rather than a cheaper one. To support businesses and individuals, over the next three years a few initiatives will be implemented.
In 2017 alone, Bank Negara Malaysia has processed applications from 43 new non-bank players, an increase of 91% compared to the past two years. This is in line with global developments where the size of the global payments industry has increased to account for 34 percent of overall banking revenues in 2016 and is projected to become a $ trillion dollar industry by 2020. This is a significant turning point. In essence, the traditional 1/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  payment channels are increasingly being replaced by nimble, innovative and lower cost alternatives. We must embrace the next wave of technological and e-payment transformation. As a nation, we need to rise and seize this exciting opportunity, take a proactive rather than a reactive role, and benefit from the enormous opportunities brought about by technology to improve our payment system’s security, efficiency, productivity. We need to bereft ourselves of the inertia to move forward with the times. There are a few strategies we ought to adopt, to reduce further the wastage arising from the cost of maintaining two parallel systems by accelerating the displacement of cheques, harness the pervasiveness of mobile payments to ensure reach, and focus on solving the last mile obstacles to enhance migration to e-payments. The enormous cost of maintaining two parallel systems Cheque is a very costly payment instrument to process compared to electronic fund transfer.