Payments Network Malaysia Sdn Bhd is preparing to launch the Open Finance Malaysia framework, a major structural shift overseen directly by Bank Negara Malaysia.
Open Finance Malaysia marks a transition from a closed data security model to a secure, consent-driven financial data-sharing framework.
Historically, legacy banking institutions viewed their consumer transactional data as a competitive advantage.
The framework dismantles this paradigm by mandating that, upon customer consent, financial data must be securely shareable via standardised application programming interfaces to authorised third-party service providers and fintech applications.
To ensure an ordered rollout, PayNet’s upcoming pilot community will comprise seven commercial banks alongside the Employees Provident Fund.
PayNet CEO Praveen Rajan says the fundamental business case for the banks is highly compelling.
Consider a mid-tier commercial bank with a customer base of half a million users. Through Open Finance APIs, they can offer real-time, highly personalised credit financing or mortgage facilities.
Users can simply click a button within the bank’s secure application, grant explicit digital consent and allow the system to instantly verify their historical contributions directly from their EPF ledger.
Last November, Bank Negara announced that it would be mandating banks to give consumers control over how their financial data is shared, accessed and used.
Major banks, development finance institutions and eligible e-money providers will begin sharing customer information — the last 12 months of transactions and current account balance — but only for customers who actively opt in.
The key factor for long-term ecosystem success is the unwavering rule of data reciprocity, says Praveen.
If you join the open ecosystem to consume financial data, you must be legally prepared to contribute your own data back into the network, he explains.
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PayNet does not aggregate, store or analyse consumer profiles. Praveen describes PayNet’s role as that of a secure digital directory.
PayNet simply verifies the consent tokens, authenticates the security credentials of the requesting parties and safely routes the encrypted payload from the data provider to the authorised consumer, he says.
After 18 years of climbing the corporate ladder in the telecommunications industry, Praveen decided it was time for a new challenge.
In the interim, PayNet is deploying targeted bilateral integrations, including an upcoming corridor with India’s National Payments Corp of India to link DuitNow with the subcontinent’s Unified Payments Interface.
This cross-border expansion requires a disciplined approach to data management. To comply with data sovereignty standards across jurisdictions, PayNet enforces a policy of data minimisation.
They explicitly avoid transmitting personally identifiable information or customer profiles across international borders, Praveen notes.
They only pass the minimal messaging layer needed to clear, reconcile and settle the transaction safely. Holding excessive consumer data outside their primary jurisdiction doesn’t add value — it simply makes them a high-value target for sophisticated bad actors.
PayNet processed a large number of transactions in 2025, driven primarily by DuitNow QR, which saw transaction volumes double to 1.7 billion across more than three million merchant touch points.
The average Malaysian made a significant number of electronic payments that year.
PayNet is also expanding outward, with cross-border QR payment transactions growing to reach 29.7 million in 2025, accelerated by incoming Chinese tourists ahead of the Visit Malaysia 2026 campaign.
Malaysia now has live bilateral QR payments integration with China, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia, with India next, as part of regional initiatives to enhance financial inclusion.
The future of cross-border finance lies in moving away from a web of bilateral links towards a unified, multilateral framework — the vision behind Project Nexus, spearheaded by the Bank for International Settlements alongside regional central banks, which will play a significant role in Southeast Asia’s wealth movement.
