Malaysia

Malaysia has a national digital identity and e-signature, with 90% of the population using the internet.

88% of adults in Malaysia had bank accounts in 2021, leaving 12% unbanked.

The government is prioritising real-time payments, and in 2019, their draft API guidelines for Open Banking (including insurance) were released with the hope of removing the use of screen scraping in gathering banking data. In 2019 Malaysia released its Shared Prosperity Vision 2030, aiming for improved financial inclusion across income groups and ethnicities. ‘Big Data’ gathering is a big priority, with the talent programmes aiming to quadruple the number of data specialists, the initial sectors targeted being public health and travel, aiming for a unified data system. 

A 2022 report highlighted that the supply pool of ICT-related disciplines was far outweighed by the demand pool of ICT industries.

Malaysia ranked 10th out of 134 countries in Wiley’s Digital Skills Global Index 2021.