PayNet To Expand Cashless Initiatives Across More Tertiary Institutions

By K. Naveen Prabu

KUALA LUMPUR, April 15 (Bernama) -- Payments Network Malaysia Sdn Bhd (PayNet) plans to expand its cashless payment initiatives to more tertiary education institutions, in collaboration with universities and student councils, as part of efforts to deepen digital payment adoption among students.

The move builds on strong growth in campus-based digital transactions, with Malaysia’s university campuses recording 58.7 million digital transactions in 2025 under the PayNet Digital Campus 4.0 (PDC 4.0) initiative, more than double the 24.4 million recorded in 2024.

PayNet senior director of the Government Digitalisation Division Firdaus Ghani said it will work closely with banks and ecosystem partners to roll out more cashless initiatives on campuses.

“Through these collaborations, the programme aims to make it easier for campus merchants to adopt digital payments while improving the overall payment experience for students,” he told Bernama in an exclusive interview. 

Firdaus noted that PDC 4.0 recorded its highest participation in 2025, with 44 universities nationwide, including all 20 public universities in Malaysia, comprising 14 Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) branches and 11 private universities, reflecting students’ growing use of digital payments for everyday transactions such as meals, groceries and campus services.

He said students themselves are driving the shift towards cashless payments, citing an initiative at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), where students developed utmduitnow.com, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered optical character recognition platform that extracts transaction details from receipts to support a competitive student leaderboard.

“It’s a creative way to encourage the greater use of digital payments on campus. Students also have multiple ways to pay, including DuitNow QR, MyDebit, FPX and JomPAY, which makes digital payments widely accessible across campus.

“With frequent daily purchases and regular engagement campaigns under Digital Campus, cashless payments have naturally become part of everyday campus life,” he said. 

On future plans, Firdaus said PayNet is focused on consolidating the outcomes and learnings from PDC 4.0, noting that any future iteration of the Digital Campus initiative would build on its strong foundation.

“At this stage, we are focused on consolidating the outcomes and learnings from PDC 4.0. The programme’s success has reinforced its value in promoting digital payment adoption and developing student leadership skills, and any future iteration will build on this strong foundation,” he said.

When asked about enhancements in the next phase, Firdaus said the focus would be on deepening impact through stronger industry alignment, closer ecosystem collaboration, greater emphasis on practical deployment, and expanded focus on security, fraud awareness and emerging payment capabilities.

-- BERNAMA