Building awareness and confidence To enhance awareness and confidence in the use of e-payments, BNM will continue to work with the financial services industry to strengthen security measures, thus ensuring that epayment transactions remain safe and secure. Significant resources are devoted to educate and guide the public in adopting e-payments through nationwide roadshows, media engagements, township campaigns and outreach programmes. The initiatives that I just outlined provide the foundation for e-payments to be less costly and to offer to the public a cheaper alternative to paper-based payment methods. The market incentive structures on the other hand, will foster effective competition and sustain the industry efforts in providing value-added and efficient payment offerings to their customers. It is in the interest of all for the financial services industry, especially the payment infrastructure providers and the financial institutions, to work cohesively to enhance the payment services where gaps remain. This should be complemented with shared investment in infrastructure building and network expansion to achieve economies of scale. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  2. Key priority areas to accelerate the displacement of cash and cheques  Progress in the displacement of cheques should be sustained Promising progress has been made in the reduction of cheque usage through the use of electronic funds transfer services such as the Interbank GIRO (IBG) and the Instant Interbank Funds Transfer (IBFT). This is mostly attributable to the lower transaction fees and the efforts by the financial institutions in offering incentives and guiding their customers to adopt e-payments.
The constant need to invest in key payment infrastructures in this country is in line with technological advancements and the changing needs of consumers and businesses. In this regard, MyClear should be responsible to facilitate the pooling of resources and adoption of new technology to expand the network reach and resilience of its payment infrastructures. Financial institutions on the other hand, should leverage on the common platform to compete by providing innovative and value-adding products to their customers. Such synergistic collaboration will prevent unnecessary duplication and wastage  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  of resources in the payment landscape. It shall reduce the cost of transactions over the long run. Modernising payment and settlement infrastructure MyClear is embarking on a multi-year programme to modernise Malaysia’s payment infrastructure. In the area of retail payments, a new real-time Retail Payments Platform will be developed to serve both as a catalyst and enabler for innovative payments in Malaysia. As for large value payments, the Real-Time Gross Settlement System or RENTAS is currently being enhanced to adopt a multi-currency system that leverages on the SWIFT messaging standard. The enhanced RENTAS would cater for multiple messaging formats including the internationally-recognised ISO 20022 which supports the transmission of richer remittance data and facilitates interconnectedness with other economies within the region. Enhancing capital market infrastructures With respect to the capital market, Malaysia’s debt securities market is the largest in Southeast Asia.