MORE than RM10 million were spent by 320,000 Malaysians on the first day of e-tunai rakyat incentive, said Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng.

Boost, Grab and Touch ‘N’ Go, the three e-wallet platforms conducting the initiative, saw some 380,000 applications as of 10pm yesterday, of which 320,000 were approved.

“Now in just one day, more than RM10 million have been spent,” he told reporters at a press conference at the SS2 morning market today.

He said the RM30 per qualifying individual government incentive aimed at encouraging spending through cashless channels will pump in some RM1 billion into the economy.

Putrajaya has allocated RM450 million for the initiative announced under Budget 2020.

While the government will allocate RM30 for e-wallet users, the operators will add an incentive of their own.

Allaying concerns on privacy and data breach concerns, Lim assured that the data of applicants will not be shared with third parties and is protected under the Personal Data Protection Act.

“We understand the public is worried that their consumption pattern will be misused by third parties, but we (government) are not running a business so we will not allow any organisation to profit from that,” he said.

Lim added that the technical glitch in one of the applications yesterday due to heavy demand, has been resolved.

He also dismissed claims by certain quarters that the initiative has seen a poor uptake.

The initiative facilitated by sovereign fund Khazanah Nasional Bhd includes a three-step vetting process.

The vetting process includes checking with the National Registration Department and Inland Revenue Board as well as to determine whether an applicant has signed up on another platform.

Lim was promoting the initiative to petty traders at the market today. This campaign will be expanded to other parts of the country.

The initiative is set to benefit 15 million Malaysians aged 18 and above and with an annual income of less than RM100,000. – January 16, 2020.