Start-up for migrants emerges top

Proving the appeal of such a service, MyCash Online edged out 10 other Malaysia-based start-ups at the Seedstars Kuala Lumpur pitching contest for early stage startups.

Its chief technology officer Mehedi Hassan Sumon said the company positioned itself as a e-marketplace for migrants, allowing customers to reload phone credit, pay bills and buy bus tickets through agents instead of going through traditional channels.

Next, they plan to offer air ticket purchase and express remittance and to allow for transactions directly through their website, pending approval from regulator Bank Negara.

For now, customers need to go |to their agents, including some 280 mom-and-pop grocers, mamak |and kopitiam foodstores and even |7-Eleven convenience stores.

Mehedi said it’s more convenient and safer for the customers to go to a nearby store, rather than travelling to multiple locations with a lot of cash in hand.

During the pitching session, he stressed that Malaysia had around 3.3 million migrants with no access to banks or credit cards.

“The life of the unbanked is like living 50 years ago. You cannot do anything online or by credit,” he said. 

Most ended up remitting cash home as they had no way of securely saving cash or purchasing products directly. The Bangladesh-native has had business experience with the migrant market through the Bangla Radio app that offers music content sourced from Bangladesh, which he founded with his wife, Malaysian Looi Yin Lin.

Since launching five months ago, MyCash Online has recorded 796,000 ringgit (Bt6.7 million) in purchases through 96,000 transactions by 26,000 unique users.

As the winner of the Malaysian leg of the contest, the MyCash Online team will represent the country at the Seedstars World Summit in Switzerland next April to compete for up to US$500 million (Bt17.5 billion) in equity investment. The first runner-up at Seedstars Kuala Lumpur was Dropee, an aggregator for trustworthy B2B drop-ship suppliers. Third place went to Cooked, a full-service online food delivery company.

The winners were chosen by a panel of jurors that included Asia Venture Group managing director Kai Kux, Khazanah National assistant vice president Aziz Kevin Lee, Gobi Partners investment director Victor Chua, Mountain Partners Malaysia CEO Hassan Alsagoff and Teak Capital investment manager Rickson Khaw. 

Khaw said MyCash Online was a unanimous choice among the jury as it targeted “the next billion”, looking beyond the “first billion” of urban middle class segment to the underserved migrants. 

The migrants, despite not being banked, were cash-rich, he noted.

Such fintech startups showed regulators how more could be done to cut down on wastage, referring to how the service let migrants shop online directly rather than remitting cash to their families, he said. 

This also helped to cut out remitters who charge a high service fee.

Alsagoff said MyCash Online was canny to offer an offline solution, allowing customers to buy online credit through agents seeing as to how smartphone and Wi-Fi penetration was lower among migrants than locals.

The seven other startups invited to pitch were travel agency Tripovo, muslimah e-commerce Styline Collection, online-offline engagement site Cheqqme, beautician booking site WeStyleAsia, muslimah cosmetics e-market place VivaQueeenBee, package tracking solution AllSome Track and pricing comparison site BolehCompare.

Seedstars World’s next stop for the Asian region was Singapore last Thursday, followed by Dhaka, Bangladesh; Kathmandu, Nepal; Taipei, Taiwan; and ending in Islamabad, Pakistan.