SUPPORTING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION WITH CULTURE CHANGE
02
DIGITAL AND CULTURAL TRANSFORM at Merchantrade Asia
D
MATION
03
w w w.mt ra de a s ia . com
MERCHANTRADE ASIA
Merchantrade’s Chief Technology Officer Zainol Zainuddin details the cultural and digital transformations empowering the company’s services
H
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
05
w w w.mt ra de a s ia . com
MERCHANTRADE ASIA
“ Our goal is to always be the financial services provider of choice” — Zainol Zainuddin, Chief Technology Officer, Merchantrade Asia
06
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
MERCHANTRADE ASIA
08
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
09
MERCHANTRADE ASIA
10
“ Technology transformation can only be successful if the organisation transforms its culture” —Zainol Zainuddin, Chief Technology Officer, Merchantrade Asia
11
w w w.mt ra de a s ia . com
EMPOWER ENTERPRISES WITH OPEN SOURCE SOLUTIONS ABYRES, a leading Enterprise Open Source solution provider that brings innovation and value to our clients in the areas of Big Data Analytics and Data Engineering Learn More
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’
w w w.mt ra de a s ia . com
13
MERCHANTRADE ASIA
14
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.”
w w w.mt ra de a s ia . com
15
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