Some of you may have gotten a potentially questionable text from your banks—that your phone number might be integrated with something called 'DuitNow', and that you're given a specific amount of time to opt out.

Many Malaysians were rightfully concerned, as many of them have not heard anything about DuitNow apart from a text informing them that they have been included.

But DuitNow is actually an initiative by Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), and an extension of the ICTF Framework that we keep talking about. The service was developed Paynet which is jointly owned by 11 banks, with BNM being the largest shareholder.

Rather than having to memorise bank account numbers or share unwieldy screenshots of them, the DuitNow service allows users to instead share their phone numbers to receive any payments or money transfers.

In business transactions, users would also be able to send money to business IDs.