The e-pay electronic top up service was first launched in Malaysia in 1999 with one mobile operator to address inefficiencies in top up or reload payment options for the fast growing prepaid mobile market. E-pay was the first to offer pre-paid mobile phone users an electronic top up option, as an alternative to physical scratch-off cards. Since then, e-pay has successfully developed a regional network of Retail Agents, expanded its service offering and entered into new Markets, which has led to a significant increase in its sales revenue and market position.

e-pay buys prepaid airtime from mobile operators and distributes it electronically to consumers via its network of 20,000 points of sale (“POS”) located mainly at convenient stores like 7-eleven, petrol stations, and pharmacies. e-pay currently processes more than 100 million prepaid mobile top-up transactions per annum and has agreements with 13 mobile operators across three countries.

The e-pay POS network, predominantly used for cash payment of mobile top ups today, is one of the largest regional electronic payments network in Asia. With more than 14,000 Terminals, it is capable of processing all kinds of cash payments, debit and credit card transactions, and electronic funds transfers. e-pay’s growth strategy includes the roll out of other services such as bill payments and prepaid cards.

Frost & Sullivan estimates that there are 400 million prepaid mobile users in e-pay’s markets generating about A$40 billion/year in top-up revenues. e-pay completes mainly with scratch cards resellers dominating about 70% of the market. Use of electronic top up is expected grow dramatically as mobile operators progressively reduce production of scratch cards to save printing & logistic costs to offset lower margins on lower denominations. Pre-paid mobile represents 80% to 95% of all mobile users in many Asian markets, due to the greater cash economy and low penetration of credit cards.