TESS further spreads its wings worldwide

MSC Malaysia Success Stories
TESS Innovation
By Charles F. Moreira

TESS Innovation has established itself as a leading developer and provider of financial crime solutions in South East Asia, with plans to have at least one or two customers in each Asia-Pacific country by 2016. Beyond that, it aims to penetrate the Middle East and the US markets.

TESS CEO B.Y. Liew

Besides Malaysia where it has a well-established market presence, TESS also has customers in Thailand and the Philippines, already has partners in Indonesia and Vietnam, and is in negotiations with potential partners to help it penetrate the China and Taiwan markets.

TESS CEO B.Y. Liew (left) with Peter Ong, Chief Technical Officer and Executive Director (seated) and Y.S. Yap, Head of Research and Development

“Our vision is to make Malaysia a recognised model in Asia for combating financial crime”, said B.Y. Liew, its chief executive officer. He also wants TESS to be recognised as a supplier of anti-financial crime solutions and to be a leading anti-money laundering solutions providers in Asia and the world. Liew is grateful for all the assistance TESS received from the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC), which has helped it in its long and ongoing journey to achieve great heights.

Founded on 22 March 2000 and now trading under the name TESS International, it initially developed Internet banking solutions and began marketing them but found it tough trying to convince local banks that a home-grown solution was as good if not better than the foreign ones which they tended to prefer.

TESS was awarded MSC Malaysia status in 2001 and that same year, it shifted its focus and adapted its Internet banking platform for unit trust management companies. Today, TESS' platforms are used by four of the five top unit trust companies in Malaysia, as well as a unit trust industry association.

TESS participated in a tender many years back to supply an Internet banking solution to a local financial institution and found that it was competing against 45 other companies offering the solution. Realising that this was a glutted market, in which competition was fierce and it would be hard to survive and grow, TESS made a shift.

We are not a “me too”

So in 2009, TESS decided to specialise on providing solutions to combat financial crime - a very niche market - and armed with RM1.2 million in funding from the MSC Malaysia Research and Development Grant Scheme (MGS Grant) - a matching grant which helped TESS develop CORAL iSEMTM (Intelligent Sensor for Money Laundering), its anti-money laundering solution, which it launched in mid 2010.

Enlinea aims be South-East Asia's leading portals operator for women

MSC Malaysia Success Stories

Enlinea

By Charles F. Moreira

The Wedding is one of the most important milestones in every young man's and young woman's life. It is the point from which they begin their lifelong journey together as husband and wife, have children, raise and educate them till they can stand on their own two feet in life, and in the mean time, also provide a suitable home for themselves, their children and perhaps their aged parents.

With that in mind, MSC Malaysia status company Enlinea Sdn. Bhd., aims to operate South-East Asia's leading  portals focusing on ladies, which cater to the three main stages of women's lives - namely their wedding, young motherhood and family home life.

Established  in early 2012, Enlinea initially developed high-volume, high traffic, electronic-commerce sites for many clients, including real estate agencies, hospitality service providers, airlines, banks, florists and others.

Later in 2012, the company decided to create and run its own electronic-commerce portal, so it developed Wedding.com.my to cater to the first main stage of women's lives, inspired by personal experience.

“And, today, we are fully committed to Wedding.com.my, which helps couples plan and coordinate all stages of their wedding, according to their likes, tastes and budget, with plans to expand beyond Malaysia into Singapore next year, and into Indonesia and Taiwan after that”, said Petrina Goh, Enlinea's Chief of Finance & Strategy.

“With the help of technology, the industry will evolve to be more transparent and will provide brides-to-be and new mothers the information they need when they begin the next stages in their lives.

“Our vision is to be South East Asia's leading female portal guiding women through the three important stages of her life, and we aim to launch our Motherhood.com.my online shop by early next year, to expand into other regions by the middle of next year, followed by portals catering to the third stage of women's lives - namely, home décor, living and lifestyle”, Petrina added.  

Enlinea, which means 'online' in Spanish, launched Wedding.com.my in beta format in September 2012, and patterns the site according to the wedding site TheKnot.com in the United States. Since then, the company has established itself as the premier and leading wedding site in Malaysia, and aims to reach eight out of 10 brides in Malaysia. It officially launched Wedding.com.my in 2013.