Touchpoint International Launches M Squared

---

A multi-sided, mobile-first community platform with Phase 1 catering to F&B delivery and offering RM10,000,000 worth of download incentives


Touchpoint International Sdn Bhd (“TPI”), a leading digital solutions company and a wholly owned subsidiary of Sino Hua An International (“Hua An”), today launched its digital application called M Squared (“M2”), a multi- sided, mobile-first community platform. M2 is designed to help commercial, government and social communities connect and interact digitally on ONE platform.

For the user, M2 will be the ONE app for all their daily interactions with mobile features such as e-commerce, mobile payment, food delivery, smart city features, event ticketing, travel planning and local community engagement. For businesses, the goal is to empower leaders to scale up market reach and maximise profits with mobile app innovations, cashless payment platforms, targeted news and notifications, multi-party loyalty programmes, big data analytics and other digital tools.

One of the unique features of the M2 platform is the emphasis on local communities through location-based content, listings, online ordering, targeted news and multi- party loyalty programmes. This means that residents of one neighbourhood eg Taman Tun will see local content, services and loyalty programmes within that community allowing support to local businesses.

M2 Phase 1 - Food & Beverage (“F&B”) delivery platform with RM10,000,000 worth of download incentives for users.

Phase 1 of the M2 platform is aimed at helping the F&B Industry, one of the most affected by Movement Control Order due to COVID-19. The F&B industry which has suffered from a loss of regular customer flow and restricted opening hours have turned to take-away and delivery services but has to pay a high onboarding fees that further cuts into their revenues. To address this, M2 has fixed its onboarding fee at only 10% (including all transaction costs). Doing so will enable business operators to maintain their original dine-in prices.


The savings will allow businesses to offer various promotions and discounts back to their customers. “For businesses to survive the New Normal, it is clear that bringing their business online is inevitable and COVID-19 has just escalated this need for retail businesses to go forward with an affordable solution. We believe we understand the F&B business more than any other developers because of our Group’s business alliances. Following support to the F&B industry, our immediate plans include delivery of fruit and vegetables, online education, resident community functions and smart city features.” said Vince Ng, Founder of TPI and Hua An’s Head of Technology.

Currently, merchants on M2 include Teh Tarik Place and TGI Fridays under Craveat International which will migrate its existing member base of 300,000 from its loyalty programme to M2, Clearwater Xperience with its lifestyle F&B brands (Ploy, Way Modern Chinois, Ma Maison, Ebisu and Babe) and Italiannies. The next rollout includes Goldthon (for durian delivery), Scholastic (the education platform offering purchase of education courses and books), TTDI Resident’s Association and Putrajaya city.

In addition to online delivery functionality, M2 offers a suite of merchant-friendly features that will be introduced in future upgrades of the app such as loyalty programmes, data analytics etc. Merchants will also appreciate the ease in using the backend functions of the app that will give them complete control to fit the scope and nature of an individual business frame and full access to the app’s cashless payment processing using all major Malaysian e-wallets and overseas ones including WeChat, Alipay in Ringgit and RMB.

“E-commerce should be something everyone embraces as this is the way forward. M2 will benefit both merchants and users equally. F&B platform delivery alone is a US$61m market which is expected to grow to US$176m by 2025. We target to capture 15% of this market in the next 24 months. We are confident to be able to achieve this due to the synergies from our platform’s unique features and community digital eco- systems,” said Ng.

“M2 is how we as communities should move forward in integrating digital tools into our daily lives. The app leverages on mobile app innovations, big data analytics and a strong suite of ready-to-use common services such as multi-mode cashless payment platform, targeted news and notifications, location-based content, real-time promotion, multi-tenant loyalty platform, booking and reservation system to offer users an enriching experience,”

In conjunction with the launch on M2 today, RM10,000,000 worth of free e-vouchers will be gifted to the first 100,000 users to download M2 from Google Play or AppStore to redeem in the above restaurants (terms and conditions apply). With subsequent upgrades, users will soon be able to access other businesses all through M2, a convenience that won’t require them to download too many e-commerce apps on their mobile.

---