This article first appeared in Wealth, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on December 30, 2024 - January 12, 2025

Digitalisation continues to gain traction in the financial and wealth management industry, a development that is reflected in the RinggitPlus Malaysian Financial Literacy Survey 2024.

For instance, 29% of respondents say they prefer to purchase an insurance policy/takaful contract online, while 32% do not have a preference. Only 39% prefer to go through an agent.

It is not surprising that the survey shows that the use of e-wallets is prevalent among Malaysians, with 95% of respondents using at least one e-wallet, an increase from 91% in 2023 and 89% in 2022.

Digital banks have been making good progress — 45% of respondents have an account with at least one digital bank while 26% intend to open one.

According to the respondents, social media has become their main source of information when they research financial matters (65%), followed by family members and friends (53%).

The respondents also trust the information they gather from social media when researching financial matters. They gave social media an average trust score of 4.05, higher than family members and friends (3.36) and banks and financial institutions (3.22).

The trend of the man in the street increasingly conducting financial activities online underscores the importance of “digital financial literacy”, which is the understanding of how to conduct research, make investment decisions and protect oneself from online scams.

“With Malaysians becoming increasingly comfortable going fully cashless and embracing digital banking, key aspects like protecting digital personal and financial information, as well as the ability to identify potential scam or fraud attempts, become a very important skill set,” says Yuen Tuck Siew, CEO of RinggitPlus.

The survey was conducted among 3,385 Malaysians nationwide using a self-administered online questionnaire through a third-party analytics platform. The sample represents a statistically accurate representation of the Malaysian population, according to the executive summary of the survey.

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