Mohd Khairil Abdullah
KUCHING: The digital service tax – announced under Budget 2020 and will come into effect on January 1, 2020 – will not affect Boost’s offline merchants.
According to chief executive officer Mohd Khairil Abdullah prior to a media luncheon held in Kuching yesterday, while Boost is not affected as it is dealing with offline merchants, it is also currently studying the digital service tax and how it may affect digital content service providers on its platform.
“We’re looking at it right now in the sense that we are not expecting offline merchants to be paying digital services tax,” Mohd Khairil said.
“However, we also have digital content that we sell through our platform and some of those digital content service providers will be affected by the digital services tax.
“For the users, of course it depends on what you are buying. At the end of the day, we are just a payment platform facilitating the transaction.
“We are studying this right now – trying to figure out how we are actually going to help our users in such a way that some of these can be actually borne by us as well.”
Meanwhile, in response to the government’s e-wallet stimulus initiative, Mohd Khairil noted that the government’s e-wallet stimulus initiative will also greatly drive the adoption of e-wallets as an exceedingly convenient method of payment for consumers.
“More importantly, it can also be viewed as a form of endorsement of the technology used which is safe and very secure for financial transactions,” Mohd Khairil said.
“There are brands that have outlets peppering every populated nook and cranny of the country and hence, make it accessible for all Malaysians to use their e-wallets to replace cash in the long run.
“But Malaysians don’t exclusively shop at those brand stores – many of us enjoy a visit to pasar malams and bazaars where we buy our favourite treats and meals from traditionally cash merchants. Today, that landscape is changing with many of these small and micro businesses are also adopting e-wallet payments.”
Mohd Khairil noted that businesses, on the other hand, will find an easy way to track transactions and glean data-driven insights into consumer trends, thus letting entrepreneurs make smarter business decisions in growing their enterprises.
“For many Malaysians, the government’s e-wallet stimulus will encourage them to try a new experience – their first time using an e-wallet. We hope we can be a driver of change for the country in our journey towards becoming a cashless society.
“The government’s e-wallet stimulus will certainly spur domestic spending for local merchants which not only spreads more prosperity throughout our economy but will also catalyse higher adoption of digital payments amongst businesses.”