Merchantrade Asia – September 2019

SUPPORTING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION WITH CULTURE CHANGE

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DIGITAL AND CULTURAL TRANSFORM at Merchantrade Asia

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MATION

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MERCHANTRADE ASIA

Merchantrade’s Chief Technology Officer Zainol Zainuddin details the cultural and digital transformations empowering the company’s services

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aving begun as a telecommunications company, Merchantrade Asia now occupies a highly visible role in the

Malaysian money services industry. As Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Zainol Zainuddin explains, the company provides a broad range 04

of services clustered around its central business, such as international money transfer, foreign currency exchange, digital payments and wholesale currency. Merchantrade has also made headlines in the digital space having successfully rolled out the country’s first ever digital remittance service and cashless payment offerings, the latest being Merchantrade Money; a multicurrency hybrid wallet offering up to 20 currency payment mode options.

With such a diverse range of services, part of Zainuddin’s role is to strategise, innovate, transform and lead the company’s technology strategies, strengthen in-house technical capabilities and build strategic technology solutions to enhance the customer experience and journey. “I spend quite a bit of time talking to our staff, figuring out technology

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MERCHANTRADE ASIA

“ Our goal is to always be the financial services provider of choice” — Zainol Zainuddin, Chief Technology Officer, Merchantrade Asia

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challenges or solutions, and the types of technology we can use,” he says.

“With an IT division as large as ours, there are always risks, especially when there’s a new challenge to overcome, which is completely common. The old school thought is to first look inward then manage tasks which can be detrimental to knowledge sharing.

Cultivating an open communication platform is crucial to maintaining and managing people and expectations.”

That openness extends to how Merchantrade Asia builds partnerships

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘MERCHANTRADE – CONNECTING PEOPLE’ 07 and connections, as Zainuddin explains.

fuels Zain’s appetite and impetus for

“We extend our own ecosystem and

digital transformation. Zain considers it

corridors to strategic partners around

vital to also listen to voices from his

the world. As building each corridor

team. “Transformation requires the

and partner takes time, we are

establishment and communication of

aggressively exploring new ways to

goals. Technology transformation can

ensure we keep our corridors expanding

only be successful if the organisation

fast. Technology wise, we currently

transforms its culture. Above all,

connect with our partners via secured

ensuring a cultural change along with

open APIs and distributed ledger

a technological one should be the

technology with all the security, speed

message being broadcasted and

and reliability that come with it.

reinforced regularly. As leaders, we

Merchantrade firmly advocates

should empower people to decide how

digitalisation at its core, from its

work is delivered. We need to keep the

leadership to its grassroots, and this

rules simple and help remove roadw w w.mt ra de a s ia . com

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blocks. Let the team prioritise good outcomes for customers. If the team believes in it, we should empower that.”

With such a culture being adopted, Merchantrade has been able to implement a wide array of business and technological improvements.

Some of the company’s most crucial systems, its customer facing applications, are developed internally. “Merchantrade owns a software company and most of our applications are built in-house. We have about 120 developers who build the majority of our applications

“ I spend quite a bit of time talking to our staff, figuring out technology challenges or solutions, and the types of technology we can use” — Zainol Zainuddin, Chief Technology Officer, Merchantrade Asia

under the Microsoft technology stack.

Another interesting technology which we are exploring is Progressive Web App, this allows building an application that is platform agnostic. This approach helps create a consistent experience across all devices while maintaining the performance advantages of each platform and shortens delivery timeline.�

Data collection and analysis has also seen significant progress. “When I joined, we had a traditional data warehouse infrastructure,� says

E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE

Zainol Zainuddin Zainol Zainuddin is an experienced IT Transformation leader who has spent the last 25 years in providing leadership to various IT Division and large Program Management set up; specifically in Financial and TELCO industries. He specialized in delivering IT Strategic programmes in accordance to an agreed road map and prioritization. He is now the Chief Technology Officer of Merchantrade Asia; a post he has held since September 2018. He is entrusted to strategize, develop, transform, innovate and lead the execution of Merchantrade technology strategies while strengthening the in-house technical capabilities and build strategic technology solutions for enhanced customer experience. w w w.mt ra de a s ia . com

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MERCHANTRADE ASIA

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“ Technology transformation can only be successful if the organisation transforms its culture” —Zainol Zainuddin, Chief Technology Officer, Merchantrade Asia

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Zainuddin. “Sometimes, it could not

Core; and through the use of edge

provide the information that we

components such as Hive and Spark.

needed. Today, we’ve adopted new

For analytics and data visualisation,

technologies and architectures

we use Tableau to create visualisations

utilising data lakes. We’ve partnered

in the form of dashboards and

with ABYRES Enterprise Technologies

worksheets. We’re also looking to

to build a big data infrastructure to

cloud, however there is still quite a

facilitate data analytics with new levels

challenge in adopting cloud-based

of insight, which is very exciting. As for

applications at the moment, especially

data collection, such as testimony

for financial services providers as

profiles, transactional data, online

it involves sensitive information.”

footprint and social media information,

Emerging technologies such as

there are quite a few methods of

AI are also on the horizon. “We have

collection, whether batch or in real time

not embarked actively on it just yet.

via NiFi or Sqoop; through Hadoop

However, we have considered other

technologies like robotic process automation (RPA) for certain operational processes which are consistent and repetitive to improve efficiency and data accuracy. It’s much easier to implement RPA in workflows. The automation process is able to complete the work much more quickly and

RM146mn Approximate revenue

1996

Year founded

produce accurate output. In the long run, it creates higher productivity and value with lower investment. Ultimately, once we have all our information data links up, we’re definitely going into AI or machine learning very quickly.”

1,200

Approximate number of employees

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘MERCHANTRADE MONEY – SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE WITH JUST ONE CARD’

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C O M PA N Y FACT S

• Most of Merchantrade’s applications are built in-house • Multicurrency hybrid wallet supports 20 currencies

As CTO, Zain’s philosophy is encapsulated by his belief that championing technology, mindset and behavioral change are paramount to attaining a competitive advantage and sustainability. The futures of fintech companies are dependent on their ability to gain customer insight, advanced analytics and digital technology to provide services that facilitate today’s ever evolving digital-savvy customers in managing their finances.

Under his stewardship, the digital future for Merchantrade heralds continued growth. “In terms of goals, we want to expand service offerings to all our customers. Our goal is to always be the financial services provider of choice. Merchantrade should be ingrained in their minds and be a force to be reckoned with for financial services globally.”

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Suite 1632, 16th Floor, Lobby 7 Block A, Damansara Intan No 1, Jalan SS20/27 47400 Petaling Jaya Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia T +603-7727 8606 www.mtradeasia.com