KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 14): AmBank is expanding its suite of credit card offerings to include two new business cards that offer a wide array of value-added benefits.

In a statement on Wednesday (Sept 14), the bank said these cards are viable financing options to serve small and medium enterprises (SMEs), specially at a time when they are still gradually recovering from setbacks of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The bank said that despite being a significant contributor to Malaysia’s gross domestic product, SMEs remain largely underbanked and underserved, citing Visa’s SME Digital Banking Study in Malaysia.

It said the study revealed that 79% of SMEs face business operation challenges, while 57% experience digitisation challenges.

AmBank said the newly launched cards come in handy to help SMEs in the form of payment, helping them to streamline and consolidate their corporate expenses under one account.

AmBank retail banking managing director Aaron Loo said the newly launched cards fill the critical gap by meeting evolving needs of business owners in providing them a 28-day interest free period to roll their cash flow.

“On top of that, there is no annual fee charge for the cards,”he said.

Loo said the AmBank Visa Platinum Business Card targets SME customers, whereas the Visa Infinite Business Card targets larger corporations, such as wholesale banking and business banking customers.

Meanwhile, Visa country manager for Malaysia Ng Kong Boon said that in the country, there is still tremendous opportunities for SMEs to digitise, and providing them with payment cards will encourage business owners to make business purchases.

“Digital payments can also help SMEs to have better visibility of their expenses, which will lead to an improved cash flow for their businesses,” said Ng.

The AmBank Visa Infinite Business Card offers a 0.5% cashback on petrol, airlines, hotels, food and travel. The cashback has no capping and no minimum spend requirements.

The AmBank Visa Platinum Business Card, meanwhile, offers reward points for local transactions, and two times reward points for overseas transactions.

This card also comes with access to Plaza Premium Lounge and RM1 million travel insurance coverage.

Cardholders are also covered with a complimentary personal accident plan of up to RM30,000.