AFTER a 10-year journey, iPay88 Sdn Bhd has established a firm foothold in Malaysia’s online payment service provider sector, a core part of the e-commerce and transactions infrastructure.

For many tech entrepreneurs, the journey begins when a person spots an opportunity and takes the leap. In many ways, iPay88’s co-founder Chan Kok Long is that quintessential tech entrepreneur and he has a lot of grit that is needed to stay the course.

His humble beginnings drove him to strive to get out of poverty. He bought his first car during his third year at university and put money down on his first home even before he had graduated.

But it had not been all smooth sailing. Chan was in debt when the Asian financial crisis struck in 1997, so he jumped into the prepaid IDD card business to find a way to make money. It was a risky move because Chan did not know much about the business. Neither did his partner, brother-in-law Lim Kok Hing. The latter, who had a career in oil and gas, spent two sleepless nights in contemplation before joining Chan on the ride.

“I had the idea, he had the money,” Chan quips. “If a business is a cash business, it will always be a good business.”

The brothers-in-law later added the distribution of prepaid mobile top-ups to their portfolio. In the late 1990s, they realised the internet was going to change everything, so they started Mobile88 Sdn Bhd in 2000 to sell the prepaid cards online.

At its peak, Mobile88 was the region’s leading online platform covering news, events, tech reviews and more. It was the humble precursor to iPay88, which came into being out of necessity as the online store needed a payment gateway. Before long, the executive directors realised that online payment was going to be a huge thing in the future, so they rolled out iPay88 in 2006.

A year later, Multimedia Development Corporation awarded iPay88 MSC Malaysia status.

Lim prefers to view challenges as a springboard for growth and creating opportunities. “If we overcome the problem, we can create something out of it. Then, we can share the solution with someone who has the same problem.”

Chan says the key part of their business is trust, not just because its systems handle millions of ringgit worth of transactions a day, but because trust is a key part of being in an ecosystem.

And that ecosystem is increasingly becoming more and more global. Chan says iPay88 has a strong presence in Southeast Asia, having grown out of Malaysia and into Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and, more recently, Vietnam. iPay88 is in the midst of setting up operations in Bangladesh and is also planning to penetrate the Middle East market by the end of March next year.

“In five years’ time, iPay88 will be a global brand,” says Chan confidently. The ultimate aspiration is to be a worldwide success like PayPal.

Speed is our strength, Lim believes. And speed is crucial because iPay88 always has to be one step ahead of its competitors.

Chan adds that iPay88’s other strength is the team’s passion to create a product of value and to build something useful for consumers. “Personally, I feel the e-commerce and digital space is [where] the opportunity [will be] for the next 10 years.”

He urges aspiring entrepreneurs to grab the opportunity and present their ideas. Be committed to your idea and business model instead of looking into getting investors to fund that idea, he says.

“Don’t stay in your comfort zone. Leave and take the risk. It is worthwhile,” says Lim.

The two men are nominees for the technology entrepreneur category. 

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