If you walk into your favourite cafés or even restaurants, you might be bombarded with small table standees with a QR code on the payment counter. That is to indicate that the restaurant has gone cashless and is accepting cashless payment options. Having multiple options to pay for your purchases is always great, but problematic since every single cashless payment vendor produces their own unique QR code for each of the participating shops.

You end up with multiple apps on a single device. To keep track of the payments, you must access different apps. That, or you get a specialised device that has access to several apps at the same time. Still, it is not perfect. You still need multiple apps to get it to work, if you choose to omit certain apps, you cannot even allow users to use those apps. In the end, it is all rubbish and using cash is still the best option to work with.

Do not get us wrong, we are very big advocates of the cashless payment system. We use them all the time and we love the fact that we do not need to carry too much cash around, saves us the trouble of getting robbed off hundreds in Ringgit. Still, because there are so many payment options out there and not everyone uses all of them, it becomes troublesome for us too; we hate that.

We’ve always said then that for eWallets and cashless payments to work in Malaysia, there needs to be a unifying body that could make all the apps work seamlessly together. Because changing all the card receiver machines across the nation is impossible and it is impossible to implement NFC type payments in all devices, the easiest is to have a single unified QR code that could work with everyone regardless of app. This announcement then, is godsent.

PayNet and Cyberview plans to lead the way to digital Malaysia with cashless payment. Then again. Cyberview has been paving the way forward for plenty of things to do with digitalising Malaysia. PayNet is an affiliate of the National Bank of Malaysia, and has been digitalising and providing essential services for Malaysian banks in terms of their payment networks and infrastructure. Thanks to Paynet, we have things like DuitNow and even free instant transfer between banks. That should be the way forward too with eWallets.

With the collaboration PayNet will start implementing unique QR codes for shops that would replace the ten million QR codes generated for the shop by other eWallet vendors. With less clutter, they look less intimidating as well. For users, you can use any eWallet of your choice to pay for your meals and shopping. All you need to do is scan the DuitNow QR code and voila, you can pay using GrabPay, or Boost, or Touch n’ Go eWallet, or FavePay; technically anyway.

The only downside right now is that they are only implementing it in Cyberjaya, for now anyway. PayNet is looking to expand their DuitNow QR to other parts of Malaysia. We think that the service will really take off in Kuala Lumpur and other parts of Klang Valley. You might have to check also if your eWallet app is also a participating vendor within the DuitNow QR ecosystem. For more information regarding DuitNow QR, you can visit their website.