May 12, 2021

Malaysia's biggest sports retailer Al-Ikhsan partners with Pine Labs to enable seamless in-store payment experiences for its customers

Singapore - May 12, 2021: Pine Labs, one of Asia’s leading merchant commerce platforms, today announced that it has deployed its point of sale (PoS) solutions across the 136 stores of Al-Ikhsan, the biggest sports retailer in Malaysia. The fully integrated tech stack of payments, wallets, gift cards, and Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) by Pine Labs is a solution in use by some of the top retailers across Asia. The ease, speed, and convenience of availing BNPL offers on Pine Labs’ PoS terminals and the availability of leading issuers on a single unified platform are all factors that will help retailers who are looking to boost sales in these tough times.

Pine Labs has a commanding 95% market share of offline BNPL services in India and through its subsidiary Pine Payment Solutions has launched BNPL in Malaysia. Al-Ikhsan is Malaysia’s biggest sports retailer in operation since 1993 and their popularity can be gauged from the fact that they are also the exclusive retail partner for Liverpool Football Club (LFC) in Malaysia. The coming together of the two entities will provide affordable instalment purchase options to sports enthusiasts in Malaysia and enable a seamless in-store payment experience as well.

“Sports as a category continues to show strong growth in Malaysia. Malaysians like to engage in Football, field hockey, badminton, and squash and their love for sports is well-known. For nearly 30 years now, we have fuelled this passion for sports in the country by providing high quality sports footwear, apparel, and equipment by focusing on our core purpose i.e. to keep Malaysia fit and active by making sports affordable for all. Our customers now have the option of seamlessly converting their purchase at any of our store into easy instalments and bring home top-quality products from our extensive range.” said Vach Pillutla, CEO, Al-Ikhsan Sports Sdn Bhd.

“Al-Ikhsan are pioneers in the sports retail business, and it is our pleasure to join hands with them in Malaysia. With deployment of more than 180 Pine Labs PoS terminals across their 136 stores in Malaysia, their customers now have another reason to rejoice as they get a plethora of payment options to choose from and the ability to convert a purchase into no-cost instalment purchase in a few taps of our PoS device. We are confident that this relationship will grow in the times to come and offer sports enthusiasts in the country a good reason to stay sharp and stay fit in an affordable manner.” said Sharad Gulhar, Head - Merchants and Brands Business APAC, Pine Labs.

Pine Labs is expanding its Pay Later proposition to other parts of Southeast Asia as well. Last year, Pine Labs announced it will launch an integrated pay later instalment solution in partnership with Mastercard to markets like Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore, and Indonesia.

About Al-Ikhsan Sports

Al-Ikhsan Sports is the number one multi-brand, multi-category sports retailer in Malaysia, with 128 stores, and that number expected to grow to 140 by the end of this year.

The company was founded by an enterprising first-generation entrepreneur when he was just in his early twenties, Mr Ali Hassan bin Mohammed Hassan. The founder saw the local population’s need for sports brands like Nike and Adidas and decided to start with a 150 square foot shop at a small shopping mall in the city of Johor Bahru.