The whitepaper showed that while 38% of SMEs preferred RTP for receiving customer payments, concerns around fraud, scams, and misdirected payments remained significant, with 42% of consumers and more than a third of SMEs expressing apprehension about RTP transactions.
As a payment rail enabling near-instant settlements, RTP offered speed and convenience for fund transfers. Across Southeast Asia, faster settlement was the top reason cited for RTP preference. In Malaysia, however, debit and credit cards were perceived as delivering faster settlements and access to funds compared with RTP, while also outperforming on security, customer familiarity, and checkout speed, with gaps exceeding 10 percentage points on each factor.
Domestically, card payments — including credit, debit, and prepaid cards — continued to lead SME customer transactions at 34%, compared with RTP at 27%. In cross-border payments, fewer than 15% of consumers selected RTP for their most recent overseas transaction, citing security concerns and the irrevocable nature of transactions.
Visa’s study also highlighted that at least one in three consumers (35%) were apprehensive about data privacy and cybersecurity, even though nearly half of the surveyed consumers across Southeast Asia used RTP for everyday purchases such as groceries and bills, both in-store and online.
“As real-time payments settle in seconds and are irrevocable, security must come first. Visa’s A2A solution suite leverages Adaptive Behavioural Analytics and AI-driven risk intelligence to help banks and businesses detect scams and fraud in real time — before the damage is done. With custom models, a unified view of risk across participating financial institutions, and global intelligence, the solution continually enhances performance and protection. In a recent UK pilot, Visa A2A Protect identified more than half of fraudulent RTP transactions that were missed by existing detection systems. The solution is also live in Argentina, achieving up to a 73% fraud capture rate,” said Previn Pillay, Country Manager, Visa Malaysia.
Operational and customer challenges persist
For SMEs, internal operational issues remained the biggest challenge, led by payment failures, declined transactions, and difficulties reconciling payments with sales records. Customer-related issues were also significant, with 66% of SMEs experiencing customer delays at checkout or requests for unsupported payment methods. Around half of card non-acceptors reported lost sales from both domestic and international customers due to limited payment options.
“Improving the day-to-day payment experience is a key priority for SMEs as domestic digital payments continue to scale. As consumers increasingly expect fast and secure ways to pay, businesses need easy-to-reconcile systems that support different preferences without slowing operations. Visa’s capabilities, when used in tandem, address these concerns and reduce payment-related disruptions for businesses and customers alike,” Previn highlighted.
Bridging cross-border gaps
As RTP evolved alongside broader regional initiatives and ASEAN’s digital interoperability aspirations, building a secure and inclusive RTP ecosystem was identified as critical to strengthening SME competitiveness, enhancing tourism readiness, and supporting Malaysia’s overall digital economic growth. With Visit Malaysia 2026 expected to attract an anticipated 47 million international visitors, interoperability was seen as key for local businesses to manage and accept foreign payments seamlessly.
Visa expanded QR Connector and Scan to Pay, linking QR-based transactions to its global network so consumers could use familiar, trusted payment methods. At the same time, merchants benefited from simple, universal acceptance. Visa Pay extended contactless tap-to-pay functionality for e-wallet users across borders, while Visa Accept enabled merchants to accept a wider range of digital payments directly on their smart devices, streamlining settlement and reducing reliance on point-of-sale terminals.
“Malaysia’s RTP momentum is strong, but the next phase of growth depends on trust, reliability, and interoperability to ensure SMEs and consumers can fully embrace real-time commerce, domestically and beyond. This is a timely opportunity to strengthen the foundations of RTP so that businesses can fully benefit from Malaysia’s rapid digitalisation, while giving consumers the confidence to use real-time payments more widely. In alignment with Malaysia’s national agenda, Visa is well-positioned to help accelerate this vision by reinforcing a secure and trusted RTP ecosystem for all,” he said.
