Malaysia’s plan to becoming a cashless society is more than just offering the benefits of e-payment as this policy could also mean shutting down corruption in the country.

A Huge Convenience

Depending on how you define convenience, adopting digital payments certainly brings a lot of advantages. For one, this could help a nation save up huge amount of resources that it needs to expend in printing monetary notes and minting coins. In the US, for example, the almighty dollar would cost 5.5 cents to make. One could only imagine the huge overhead expense the Federal Reserve has to spend to print those Washingtons and Benjamins.

Going cashless also helps increase efficiency and at the same time, speed up a country’s payment processing systems.

A Viable Solution

Malaysian Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng emphasized the important role that the cashless system can do for Malaysia. According to Eng, it “could help cut down corruption” in the government and Malaysia doesn’t have to look elsewhere for proof that this apparently works.

In a keynote speech he made during the WeChat Pay technology exhibition last month, the minister pointed out how the system greatly “reduced” corruption in China.

Suffice to say, there’s gravity to Eng’s statement. The World Economic Forum cited in its report governments such as India, Tanzania, Rwanda, and even France reaping the benefits of going digital.

According to WEF, e-payment transactions ensure transparency as opposed to conventional, non-digital channels. The money, as WEF pointed out, “either reaches the intended recipient in full, or goes back in state coffers.”