KUALA LUMPUR – The recently launched PAS superapp, MyOnePAS, which will include a plethora of financial and religious services, appears to be developed by a fledgling company with self-proclaimed digital business guru Mohd Najib Asaddok on its board of directors.
According to Companies Commission (SSM) documents sighted by Scoop, app developer PASPay Technology Sdn Bhd was formed on September 27 with a registered address at Jalan 19/36, Petaling Jaya.
The incorporation date is about a month before PAS president Tan Sri Abdul Hadi Awang launched the app at the party’s annual congress on October 21, following which party secretary-general Datuk Seri Takiyuddin Hassan told a press conference that, among others, various payment options would be made available on the app.
SSM documents list the company’s nature of business as being “activities of holding companies, advertising and other information technology service activities not elsewhere classified.”
Considering its newly incorporated status, no financial information is available for the company, which has an RM100 share capital.
The company has a total of five directors helming its leadership, including 40-year-old Najib, who is featured on several billboards advertising his online marketing coaching services along the Federal Highway. He is listed alongside other individuals believed to be PAS supporters and members.
Najib previously made headlines in 2018 when then agriculture and agro-based industry minister Datuk Seri Salahuddin Ayub postponed his appointment as marketing advisor in the National Agriculture Advisory Council.
Salahuddin, who passed away in July this year, said then that the postponement was to allow scrutiny of online allegations against Najib after social media users questioned the appointment, claiming that Najib’s professional background was unrelated to the agriculture industry.
Last year, Najib again courted controversy when he lodged a police report against a TikTok user for allegedly posting a clip of the former’s live stream, in which Najib was bombarded by comments accusing him of running an “air liur (saliva) business.”
Najib’s accusers took issue with his credentials, questioning whether he had any successful business ventures to qualify him as a marketing and business coach.
On his LinkedIn profile, Najib, who owns no shares in PASPay Technology, describes himself as chief executive officer at a digital marketing consulting company called Momentum Internet Sdn Bhd, which he reportedly founded in 2014.
Besides Najib, another PASPay Technology director is Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd agent InfaqPay chief executive officer Ahmad Rashdan Ikhsan, who also holds a 10% share in the company.
Former Federal Territories PAS Youth information chief Syed Ahmad Fadhli Syed Mahmad Hadzari, who was one of Takiyuddin’s special duties officers during his stint as energy and natural resources minister under the previous administration, is also named as a director with a 25% stake in the company.
Another director with a 25% share is PAS member Mohd Khoirol Anwar Mat Zuki, who was involved in the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission’s probe in 2019 regarding allegations that PAS had received RM90 million from the embattled 1Malaysia Development Bhd.
The final director in PASPay Technology is a woman by the name of Norrina Juffri, who is also the sole shareholder of a separate information technology company called Digital Badr Sdn Bhd, which is the biggest shareholder in PASPay Technology with a 40% stake.
For the record, Takiyuddin was previously reported as saying that the MyOnePAS app would be developed by a company called Pay Tech Sdn Bhd. However, checks by Scoop found no SSM records of the company.
On October 28, Takiyuddin said that MyOnePAS was developed by PASpay Technology, and that it was still in its beta phase of development. It can only be downloaded from the app’s website for the time being before it is made available on the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store.
Takiyuddin added that the app was expected to be available on the platforms by the end of this month, and that it was not just for PAS members as it could be used by anyone. Besides an option to make a donation to PAS, other services offered by the app include an e-wallet, bill payment, mobile reloads, prayers schedule and a qibla finder.
He said this in a statement responding to reports of tech reviewers sounding the alarm over potential security risks to users who download the application as an APK file from the website.
Checks on the website show that visitors are greeted with a notice stating that MyOnePAS is a collaborative project with ManagePay Services Sdn Bhd, a merchant acquirer fully-owned by ManagePay Systems Bhd. – November 6, 2023