The tie-up is part of a drive to bring greater convenience to customers and further cashless cross-border payments across Southeast Asia.
Singapore's electronic payment network Network for Electronic Transfers (Nets) and its Malaysian counterpart PayNet launched real-time cross-border usage of ATM cards in Malaysia and Singapore on Friday, the two payments firms announced in a press release.
Following a pilot in November 2018 that included 4,500 payment points in Johor Bahru, 7,400 tourist and retail hotspots in Johor Bahru, Melaka, Kuala Lumpur and Penang will start accepting payments with Nets ATM cards from today. In Singapore, 500 points will accept ATM cards under Malaysia's MyDebit scheme.
There will be no conversion fee for cross-border payments, and users will enjoy competitive exchange rates, the announcement said.
More Countries to Come
Nets, which is accepted by 102,000 merchants in Singapore, hopes to grow its number of merchants in Malaysia to 10,000 by early 2020, and to 50,000 by mid-2021, the firm said. Building on their partnership, Nets and PayNet said they are working on enabling cross-border instant fund transfers and QR payments.
Following Malaysia, NETS is expected to launch in Thailand in 2020, and thereafter Indonesia.
