KUALA LUMPUR: Pertama Digital Bhd (PDB) has announced a strategic partnership with Pusat Pungutan Zakat Majlis Agama Islam Wilayah Persekutuan (PPZ-MAIWP) to process cashless zakat payments via MyPay, the company's super app for government services.

MyPay is operated by Dapat Vista (M) Sdn Bhd (DVSB), a majority-owned subsidiary of Pertama Digital.

PDB director of strategy Saify Akhtar said the pandemic had accelerated the demand for digital government services, including cashless zakat payments.

"At the same time, our Asnaf are facing disproportionate challenges during these unprecedented times due to the digital divide.

"We identified an urgent need to solve this problem through digitalisation," said Saify in a statement today.

The MyPay zakat contribution feature has been launched with PPZ-MAIWP and has gone live in the app in time for the December peak zakat contribution season.

DVSB chief executive officer Amanda Sabri said the company had built the MyPay zakat contribution feature after gaining a detailed understanding of what each stakeholder required and what its competitors were not addressing.

Amanda said in 2020, MAIWP has collected RM756 million of zakat, of which only RM122 million was collected online.

"We saw an opportunity to give back to the Rakyat by applying our expertise at launching and scaling digital solutions for government services.

"DVSB's expertise lies in being able to drive digital adoption by the masses, as demonstrated in its widely adopted digital bail payment solution, eJamin," she said.

Listed on the main market of Bursa Malaysia, PDB backs govtech and fintech initiatives that build impactful, inclusive solutions for Malaysians.

Recently, PDB's consortium applied for a digital banking licence from Bank Negara Malaysia, focused on a collaborative approach with ecosystem players to provide ethical and productive financing for the financially underserved to fuel post-pandemic productivity.