News & Reviews:   government

It seems that Xiaomi has recently been placed in the US government’s blacklist, which means that US investors will not be allowed to purchase shares from Xiaomi. Unlike Huawei, Xiaomi is still able to import and use technologies from the US without a need for a license.

After going through an economic downpour due to the pandemic, our government is doing everything they can to bring the businesses back to life. Earlier, the e-PENJANA program that has raised a total of RM1.5 billion among private companies was introduced to distribute free RM50 (e-wallet credit) + RM50 (discount voucher and cashback) to every Malaysian e-wallet user. Now, the plan is finally going to kickstart starting from 31 July onwards.

A few months ago, the Minister of Finance Dato’ Sri Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz announced that the government have approved the e-PENJANA program. This program was initiated by the government to cooperate with the private companies, each of the groups was allocated RM750 million and the program has successfully raised a total of RM1.5 billion.

Earlier today, Prime Minister Muhyiddin has officially announced that the government will be giving away e-wallet worth RM50 to all Malaysians in order to encourage the usage of cashless payments. The RM50 will be given out starting from July 2020 onwards through selected e-wallet platforms such as Grab, Touch ‘n Go, and Boost.

Based on a statement by the Malaysian government, e-Bazaar will not be allowed to operate due to the Movement Control Order (MCO) which is in effect until 28 April 2020. Other than that, they’ve also mentioned that regular e-hailing services including GrabFood are still allowed to operate even during the MCO albeit with some restrictions.

According to Bernama, it seems that any customers from other banks that withdraw money from any of the 2900 Maybank ATMs nationwide, will not be required to pay the RM1 withdrawal fee starting from 6 April 2020 until the end of the Movement Control Order (MCO) order. While there is no information on when the end of the MCO will be, we do know that the government will announce whether it will be extended on 10 April 2020.

Grab has officially announced that they will be supporting the Malaysian Government in encouraging cashless payments adoption, by rewarding customers up to three times more GrabRewards Points to those who pay via GrabPay. Unfortunately, those who pay via cash will not be eligible for the extra points as it only applies to GrabPay transactions.