doing business. in terms of cash, over the last 3 years, an average of 547 million cash withdrawals at atms were made amounting to rm276 billion per annum. this represents 93 % of the total financial transactions conducted at the atms, while only 7 % of the atm transactions were for noncash withdrawal. these included funds transfer, bill payment, card and loan repayment, purchase of share application and reload of mobile prepaid applications, which was valued at rm37 billion on average per year. so the usage of atm for e - payment purposes was underutilised and the industry should do more to improve this situation. bis central bankers ’ speeches atms to cater to those that have not adopted online banking 92 % ( or 18. 4 million ) of the total adult population in malaysia has banking accounts and of these, the internet banking population accounts for about 74 % ( 13. 7 million ) of bank account holders. whilst 74 % of the bank account holders have internet banking access but only 43 % ( 5. 9 million ) of the internet banking subscribers are active users in conducting financial transactions. still a long way to go to encourage users to adopt electronic means in conducting their banking transactions. in this regard, we have to do more to reach critical mass where the public are familiar with or comfortable in using internet banking to conduct their financial transactions. to achieve this aim, banks should continuously increase their efforts to educate their customers and businesses on the safety of online banking practices and provide incentives to them to migrate away from cheques and cash. meps ’ initiative on widening the atm network would also provide convenient access points across the country to enable those who have not yet adopt online banking to migrate to cashless banking services. in particular, the target groups are the smes and microenterprises. banks should extend all necessary assistance to help these groups to migrate to the e - payment platform. to realise the full potential of the payment network, banks that offer cheque issuing and atm cash withdrawal facilities should provide the full suite of funds transfer and electronic payment functionalities over the atms. of the 20 banking institutions that offer atm services, 17 of them today provide the ibft service, a real time interbank funds transfer service that enable customers to transfer funds via the atm in a safe and secure manner. banking institutions are strongly encouraged to also offer the interbank giro ( ibg ) via their atms as a lower cost option to the ibft.

muhammad bin ibrahim : development and deployment of malaysia ’ s atm network speech by mr muhammad bin ibrahim, deputy governor of the central bank of malaysia, at the launch of meps ( malaysian electronic payment system ) atm initiative, kuala lumpur, 21 october 2013. * * * pooling of resources through meps the launching of meps ’ atms marks an important milestone as this will be the first time that meps, a non - bank entity owned by the banking industry, is deploying atms, instead of by individual banks. this initiative is indeed a welcomed move as it facilitates the pooling of resources by the banking industry for a common objective of developing and deploying industry - wide banking infrastructure. it promotes efficiency and cost effectiveness. widening the atm network through shared resources will also benefit the public by having more convenient points of access to banking products and services. meps had in the past a history of coordinating industry - wide infrastructure development efforts. an outstanding achievement was made when it coordinated the industry - wide migration of the atm cards from magnetic stripe to chip - based technology in 2001 to eradicate the numerous fraud involving magnetic stripe technology. this move was a significant strategy for the country, as malaysia was amongst the first, to adopt a chip - based technology to reduce fraud and boost public confidence in the use of the atm and payment cards. meps should continue to perform this role, as builder of payment infrastructure for the banking industry. as an industry, banking institutions should continue to share infrastructure cost and compete on providing quality products and services. basic payment infrastructure should not be a tool for competitive edge but rather as a means to reduce cost and adopting common standards. migration to e - payments to achieve cost savings accelerating the migration to e - payments is one of the key strategies in the financial sector blueprint. on numerous occasions we had highlighted that a successful migration has the potential to drive further efficiency gains and cost savings. it will improve the country ’ s competitive position. research has suggested that successful migration to e - payments can save the country in terms of costs ( of about 1 % of gdp annually ). today, cheques and cash remain prevalent in malaysia. based on the last 3 years data, an average of 205 million cheques totalling to about rm2 trillion were issued on an annual basis. our preliminary estimates showed that at rm2. 70 cost per unit, the banking industry spends at least rm544 million annually on extending cheques issuing services. this is an expensive way of