by Ian Isaiah Danald & Hardip Singh Rekhraj
As Covid-19 accelerated all things tech, so did it catalyse the cashless revolution and digital payments in Malaysia. Swipe, a homegrown startup, benefited from this tailwind by conceptualizing an all-in-one customisable payment platform targeting e-commerce platforms, multinational corporations and education institutions in accepting, managing, and distributing payments worldwide in one swift click.
Payment gateways have existed in Malaysia for more than a decade but its function has not changed drastically. Swipe recognizes this gap and is actively leveraging on its team’s 23 years of collective wisdom to go beyond the ordinary payment gateway service.
Going by the tagline, “Swipe a complete payment platform for business”, Swipe is helping businesses to accept online transactions, manage and distribute the online payments globally since their establishment in August 2021.
Seamless, Automated Transactions with Swipe
“Should a payment gateway face unforeseen interruption, businesses relying on a single payment gateway will have to hold accepting online transactions until the matter is resolved.
Having access to Swipe’s future seamless switch service, Swipe Platform, merchants can switch payment gateways to overcome unforeseen interruptions,” commented Founder of Swipe, Azarul Hakim Ibrahim.
Swipe Platform allows merchants to switch payment gateways in
one seamless click without coding or additional payments
An example of the convenience Swipe Platform will provide merchants is in the instance the payment gateway utilised is interrupted during a merchant’s promotional sale of their products. Merchants can seamlessly switch payment gateways in one swift click without coding, instant troubleshooting, or additional subscription payments.
Swipe Settle automates payment distribution between multiple stakeholders instantly
In the pipeline is also Swipe Settle, an automated-split transaction system that allows multiple stakeholders to receive payments in a cost efficient and timely manner. Without Swipe Settle, merchants and involved stakeholders are dependent on employees to manually calculate the distribution of payments, introducing possibilities of human error.
A Trusted Payment Platform
According to the Visa Consumer Payment Attitudes 2021 study, seven out of ten Malaysians attempted to go cashless in 2021. Moreover, electronic payment channels saw over 7.2 billion transactions—increasing 30 per cent per annum. However, as the general populace began shifting to online purchases, e-commerce fraud was on the rise. The Star reported a sum of 8,162 e-commerce fraud cases were reported amounting to RM 57.73 million in 2021.
Swipe Signal displays the percentage of fraud to benefit merchants
To monitor fraudulent activities and cover risk management, Swipe is partnered with Chargeback Gurus and Verifi. Through the partnership, Swipe developed a machine learning system to study the risk of credit card fraud based on the business type, cardholder information, location, and device utilised for the transaction. Consequently, Swipe’s service, Swipe Signal, displays the percentage of risk regarding the transaction to help and secure from the fraud.
The Future of Swipe
At the time of writing, Swipe currently works with 115 merchants and has surpassed 1,000,000 transactions. In their first year, the fintech startup aims to have 2,000 merchants utilising their services while their target for year six is to be globally implemented.
With Swipe developing Swipe Platform and Swipe Signal, the startup has additional future service developments for merchants to anticipate. Swipe is in the testing phase for their integration with DuitNow. Additionally, the startup is in their final stage of testing for their billing and invoice service, Swipe Billing. The service is an automated billing system to collect payments from merchants’ customers automatically and provides the personalisation of company invoices to customise and share invoices with merchants’ customers to receive payments on time.
“Within the next five years, Swipe hopes to become among the leaders in the financial technology industry to assist businesses in elevating their efficiency and reduce unnecessary process and costs through automation and personalisation,” expressed Azarul.
This article is contributed by Venturous PR, a student-led communications agency from Taylor’s University, School of Media & Communication (SOMAC). As an entrepreneurial sandbox for senior PR undergraduates, Venturous PR strives to make innovative communication solutions accessible to Startups and SMEs. The project is part of Business Today’s social engagement initiative with PR students to promote ethical journalism. This Startup is part of MDEC’s Malaysia Digital Hub Community, which provides impactful intervention to facilitate growth of local tech companies.
