e-pay (M) Sdn Bhd is confident of reaping RM 200 million revenue from its electronic reload solution business in Indonesia by financial year ending March 31 2004. In the first quarter, the company ranked in RM 20 million revenue. "The cellular prepaid business is growing phenomenally in Indonesia. In fact it is a booming industry in the emerging markets of South-East Asia, outpacing the growth of post-paid users," said executive director Hassan Said.

He said through e-pay reload terminals, prepaid users can pick and choose the denomination and product type depending on the network they are connected. A voucher is printed out when a payment is made and is handed to users straight from the terminal. e-pay is tied up with four cellular operators in Indonesia through its joint venture, whereby it holds a 70% stake.

"There are currently 12 licensed operators in Indonesia, which are our potential clients. We hope to tie up with all of them by next year," said Hassan. He hopes to increase e-pay reload terminals to 1,000 units from the existing 600 by March next year, adding that it had invested RM 2 million for the hardware, terminal and system for the joint venture. "We are also looking at Thailand and countries in southern Asia such as Pakistan, India and Bangladesh," said Hassan, adding that negotiations are on going and hope to venture to at least one the countries mentioned by the first quarter next year.

In Malaysia, e-pay has tied up with Celcom (M) Bhd to introduce a pin -less and voucher -less auto reload method, to be officially launched this Thursday. "This is a more secured and error free method for reloading . Celcom customers just have to swipe the e top-up card or key in their mobile phone number manually into the e-pay terminal and the talktime credit will be added to their mobile phone," he said. He said only 10 per cent of Malaysia's eight million prepaid users top up electronically. The majority still prefer reloading using a physical top up card. "The trend is moving towards electronic payment or real time online method.

"I expect the current trend to reverse by the end of next year," said Hassan. By the end of this year , e-pay will increase its e-pay terminals nation wide to 4,000 units from the current 3,700 units. The e top-up card and e-pay terminals are available in most networks of convience stores such as 7-Eleven, petromarts and retail outlets. e-pay's electronic top up solution has also been accepted by Internet access operators and International Direct Dial operators, namely Jaring, TM Net, DiGi chatz, iTalk, Ring-Ring, TimeKontact and Flexicall.

The MSC status company will also introduce a chip based payment transaction application for credit card, debit card and MEPS cash in the first quarter of next year. Last year e-pay's business in Malaysia generated RM240 million in revenue.

From NST November 18 2003