KUALA LUMPUR – The MyKasih Foundation has increased the processing capacity of Sara MyKad terminals by 60% in a bid to ease congestion and ensure smoother transactions, following reports of payment delays at several outlets nationwide.
In a statement today, the foundation said additional staff had been deployed to larger hypermarkets to provide on-site support and resolve technical issues.
Shoppers were also advised to plan their purchases during off-peak hours, such as weekday mornings, to avoid bottlenecks.
“We are actively monitoring system performance around the clock and taking immediate action to enhance system capacity where needed.
“As of 5pm today, we have successfully completed almost 600,000 transactions, a 20% increase compared to the same time yesterday,” the foundation said.
This brings the total number of Sara aid and monthly Sara transactions over the past two days to 1.45 million, amounting to RM91 million in spending.
Despite the improvements, delays were still reported in Selangor, Perak, Sabah and Malacca, particularly at hypermarkets in densely populated urban areas.
Bottlenecks were most pronounced during peak shopping hours between 1pm and 2.30pm, with the foundation noting that the long weekend may have contributed to the surge in shoppers.
System downtime yesterday had led to payment delays and prompted some customers to abandon their purchases.
The latest round of assistance saw a RM100 one-off Sara credit distributed via MyKad to more than 22 million Malaysians, alongside monthly Sara credit for 5.4 million recipients.
The funds, which can be spent on 14 categories of daily necessities, are accepted at over 4,100 outlets nationwide, including Mydin, Lotus’s, Econsave, 99 Speedmart and Hero Market, as well as smaller district-level stores.
The one-off distribution is expected to benefit 22 million people with a total allocation of RM2 billion. — September 1, 2025