Malaysians No Longer Have to Pay Online Instant Transfer Fees Starting July 2018

It seems that Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) has finally heard our grumbles and decided to waive of that extra fee starting from July 1, 2018. This means that we can transfer money instantly, for free!

According to The Sun Daily, BNM decided to waive the fees as they want more people to use electronic payments which would help to reduce the costs that comes from traditional payment methods. This fee waiver is only applicable for single transactions up to RM5,000 made by individuals and small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

“There are a few strategies we ought to adopt, to reduce further 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,” BNM governor Tan Sri Muhammad Ibrahim said.

There are no news about the transaction fees for regular interbank giro transactions so we assume that the transaction fee of 11 sens (with GST) is still applicable. However, for frequent cheque users, we’ve got bad news for you as cheque fees will increase from 50 sen to RM1. But don’t worry just yet!

This move is expected to start in another few years’ time, from January 2, 2021 and will gradually increase to mirror the actual cost of cheque procession which is RM4. Compared to this, electronic payments only cost 30 per transaction and BNM hopes that this would encourage more people to use electronic methods instead.

Although cheque volume has decreased dramatically by 42% since 2011 to 120 million this year, BNM wants to drop this number to 100 million by 2019.

Can’t wait for free instant transactions! 

 

Also read: Unsure If It’s a Scam? You Can Now Check Online If Bank Accounts Have Been Reported Before