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Visa, the world’s leader in digital payments, announced that AVANA, Atome, hoolah and Split will be joining Visa’s Where You Shop Matters campaign. The companies will work together with Visa to support local small and micro businesses (SMBs) in growing their online presence through social commerce as well as enabling Malaysians to support homegrown brands by providing consumers with more flexible payment options.

The #KitaJagaKita slogan has become a way of life for Malaysians since the start of the pandemic. Based on a recent Visa study, 98 per cent of Malaysians have indicated that they are willing to shop at local retailers to support their business recovery. Results have also shown that 30 per cent of consumers have already formed the habit of shopping at local businesses as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ng Kong Boon, Visa Country Manager for Malaysia, said, “It is heartening to see local businesses receiving support from consumers and businesses alike during these times of need. We are glad to welcome AVANA as a social commerce enabler, with Atome, hoolah and Split as BNPL enablers, on the Where You Shop Matters program to help SMBs cater to current consumer needs and shopping trends.”

Today, digital payment systems have been integrated into multiple social media platforms, allowing brands to leverage on a Direct-to-Consumer model. In this way, consumers can get product suggestions seamlessly integrated into their social feed and make purchases directly from merchants. For a market that is heavily engaged in social media, more than half of the Malaysian population are interested to eventually use social commerce.

“We are excited to partner with Visa to empower more merchants with an all-in-one solution for their online business needs. AVANA aims to empower SMEs to digitalise their businesses and take advantage of the power of social media through our integrated social commerce platform. In addition to providing a professional branded e-commerce store, AVANA aggregates and pushes catalogs into multiple social media and conversation channels that include Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, Messenger, LINE, Telegram and others. Businesses will be able to easily monitor, control and manage all these sales channels via a centralised dashboard. The dashboard fully automates their inventory, marketing and fulfilment management,” said Luqman Adris, Chief Executive Officer of AVANA.

AVANA will be offering its Alliance Partner’s services to Visa cardholders at a preferential rate of 10 per cent cashback in the form of shipping credits on AVANA’s Yearly Business and Yearly Agent plans.

In addition, many retailers are starting to embrace Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) services, which allows consumers to manage payments by instalments, and have flexibility on their payment terms, especially when purchasing high value goods. Visa will be partnering Atome, hoolah and Split to introduce exclusive offers to merchants and consumers to adopt the BNPL solutions.

“Local businesses are the backbone of any economy and the prolonged MCO measures in Malaysia have hit them harder than most, so we’re proud to join Visa in supporting the “Where You Shop Matters” campaign. Many of our merchant partners on Atome in Malaysia are local SMEs and we want to play our part in enabling payment convenience and flexibility to support their recovery,” Trasy Lou Walsh, General Manager of Atome Singapore and Malaysia stated.

“We are excited to be embarking on this meaningful partnership with Visa, as it further solidifies our dedication in building meaningful engagements in our hoolah ecosystem between our partners, merchants and consumers. We’re delighted to be able to support local SMBs in Malaysia and grow their businesses with our omnichannel BNPL solution, as we push forward together in this time of recovery and growth,” highlighted Arvin Singh, COO and Co-Founder of hoolah.

“We are committed to helping digital consumers achieve wiser budgeting and empowering them to afford everyday needs using our platform. But more than that, Split’s omni-channel offering is a sustainable solution for businesses to achieve incremental revenue while allowing them to focus on their business growth. As many local businesses continue to weather the effects of COVID-19, we’re excited to collaborate with Visa in its Where You Shop Matters campaign as we believe that this partnership will support our local SMBs in connecting and engaging with a wider range of customers and vice versa,” said Dylan Tan, Chief Executive Officer of Split.

“With the current fluctuating COVID-19 cases in Malaysia, we believe that where Malaysians choose to shop can have a big impact. Frequenting local retailers not only helps businesses to survive and even thrive, but it also helps spur the nation’s economy which benefits the society. With these newly formed partnerships, we look forward to seeing more new and existing merchants joining the Where You Shop Matters programme. Through this, we hope to be able to bridge Malaysians’ needs with our merchants’ myriad of offerings,” added Kong Boon.

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