Malaysia's RHB Bank launched RHB PAY on 5 August, describing it as the country's first bank-owned unified online payment gateway. Bank Negara Malaysia Deputy Governor Aznan Abdul Aziz also used the characterisation at the launch.

The commercial rationale centres on capturing merchant relationships and transaction flows. During a media briefing, Group Managing Director and CEO Mohd Rashid Mohamad said charges to merchants were expected to remain broadly comparable with existing arrangements. RHB expects to benefit by bringing more existing and new customers onto the platform and capturing the transaction flows generated through it.

Rashid said the platform was built after RHB identified demand from businesses for payment acceptance to be more closely connected with their banking relationship, including greater visibility, control and faster access to funds.

RHB PAY is positioned as an operating layer connecting multiple payment channels with merchants' banking and settlement processes. Through a single integration, merchants can accept cards and account-based online payments, including Financial Process Exchange (FPX) and DuitNow Pay, while accessing automated reconciliation, consolidated reporting and direct settlement into RHB accounts. FPX and DuitNow Pay operate on infrastructure provided by Payments Network Malaysia (PayNet), the country's national payments network.

Malaysia's payments market shifts toward greater integration

As Malaysia's digital payments market reaches greater scale, the focus is shifting from expanding payment acceptance toward integrating payments more deeply with business processes, while trust and operational resilience become increasingly important.

Electronic payment transactions increased 25% to 18.4 billion in 2025, equivalent to 538 transactions per capita, according to Bank Negara Malaysia. Aznan said electronic payments create greater value when they are integrated with business processes including reconciliation, bookkeeping, accounting and inventory management.

He also identified value, inclusion and trust as three priorities for further payment innovation. As payments become more embedded in business activity, he said operational resilience, cybersecurity and fraud prevention become increasingly important to maintaining confidence in digital services.

For banks, this places more emphasis on the services built around increasingly mature payment infrastructure. RHB's decision to operate its own gateway gives it greater control over the layer connecting payment acceptance with settlement and banking, while also placing greater responsibility on the bank for the reliability and security of its platform.

PayNet processed 8.44 billion digital payment transactions in 2025 and reported 99.995% service availability. At the launch, PayNet Chairman Mohd Izzaddin Idris said its role is to provide trusted national infrastructure on which financial institutions and other participants can build services, with continued investment needed as technology and payment risks evolve.

RHB PAY operates above these shared national payment rails, connecting them with merchants' banking, settlement and reconciliation processes.

RHB differentiates through greater integration

Payment acceptance and reconciliation are already established capabilities among Malaysian banks. Maybank combines e-commerce card acceptance with receivables-management services and accounting-software partnerships that support automated bank reconciliation. CIMB offers e-commerce merchant acceptance alongside transaction-reconciliation functionality through its iTerminal merchant service, while Hong Leong Bank's e-commerce gateway is powered by Mastercard Payment Gateway Services.

RHB's distinction lies in bringing payment-channel integration, settlement and reconciliation into a unified gateway built and operated by the bank, with payment flows connected directly to RHB accounts.

RHB targets four merchant pain points

RHB is initially focusing on onboarding, integration, settlement and reconciliation, four areas identified by Mohammad Alief Hussaini, Head of Digital Merchant Solutions, as common pain points for merchants.

Under RHB PAY, merchants complete a single onboarding and integration process for supported payment channels. Transaction and settlement information is then presented through one portal instead of merchants having to consolidate reports generated by separate systems.

Settlement is another point of differentiation. RHB said payments using real-time channels such as FPX and DuitNow Pay can move directly into the merchant's RHB account without first being held in an intermediary settlement account. For real-time channels such as FPX and DuitNow Pay, RHB said settlement is instant.

Automated reconciliation then matches transaction and banking records, addressing a process that Alief said can otherwise require finance teams to compare reports manually.

At launch, 20 businesses had been onboarded to the RHB PAY pilot. Merchants showcased at the briefing included SSF, a Malaysian home-furnishings retailer, mobile operator Tune Talk and a state land administration office.

Transaction banking moves beyond payments

RHB sees the gateway as a foundation for a broader transaction-banking relationship. Dev Raaj Shanmugam, Head of Group Transaction Banking, said the “future of transaction banking lies beyond payments”, describing a model in which collections, payments, liquidity, financing and business insights become increasingly connected.

He said businesses increasingly expect banking to become part of how they operate, with seamless payments, automated collections and real-time visibility over cash flow. RHB PAY is intended to connect the payment experience with that wider banking ecosystem.

The immediate RHB PAY proposition remains narrower than that vision. The bank plans to add e-wallets, QR payments, Direct Debit and Auto Debit in a second phase targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026.

RHB is also exploring artificial intelligence, initially for reconciliation and later for predictive analysis using historical payment trends and payment failures. These capabilities remain on the roadmap.

Merchant adoption is the immediate test for RHB PAY. The larger measure will be whether owning the gateway allows RHB to capture a greater share of merchants' transaction flows and deepen relationships through operating accounts, cash management and other banking services. If it does, the strategic value of RHB PAY will extend beyond payment processing.