The governor of Bank Negara Malaysia, Tan Sri Nor Shamsiah Mohd Yunus has said that the central bank hopes to announce the successful applicants of its five digital banking licences by next month.
“We are in the ‘advanced stage’ of assessing the applications for digital banks, and we target to announce the digital banks with the publication of our annual report at the end of March,” said Tan Sri Nor Shamsiah during a briefing today.
The governor further said that BNM had received a total of 29 applications, and that it has to thoroughly evaluate each and every single application as only five licences are on offer. BNM had opened up application for the licences back in January 2021, and some major names that have made their bid include Sunway, Grab, Axiata-RHB Bank, BigPay, as well as the state government of Johor and Sarawak.
Tan Sri Nor Shamsiah also emphasised that BNM is looking for applicants who can offer relevant products and services to the unserved and underserved segments. With this, it is hoped that more people and entrepreneurs can have improved access to better assets or opportunities to grow their businesses.
“We also expect the entry of these digital banks to accelerate the digitalisation of our incumbent banks. This will be good not just for the industry, but also for all of us here as customers of the incumbent banks,” Tan Sri Nor Shamsiah said.
(Source: The Edge Markets)
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