Malaysia – Paywatch, a Malaysia-headquartered financial wellness platform and earned wage access (EWA) provider, has partnered with IMU Healthcare to introduce MediPay, an app-based feature that lets employees pay for health and wellness packages using wages they have already earned. The move comes as Malaysia’s workforce faces mounting financial strain from rising living costs, with the country’s productivity losses linked to unmanaged stress and health-related presenteeism.
According to the companies, MediPay is designed to remove liquidity barriers during unexpected healthcare episodes, allowing employees to draw on already-earned salaries to cover medical expenses rather than resorting to credit or loans. The feature is scheduled to become available from September 2026.
In its initial phase, the partnership will focus on enabling employees to fund healthcare expenses directly through their accrued wages. A second phase is planned to broaden the offering to include treatments not typically covered by standard employee insurance, such as chiropractic care, dental treatments and other therapeutic services, offered at discounted rates.
Paywatch describes itself as a next-generation Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) built around a zero-debt philosophy, providing access only to wages already earned, at zero interest. The company positions its earned wage access service as a tool to reduce reliance on informal credit while supporting long-term financial capacity among workers.
Meanwhile, IMU Healthcare operates as part of IMU University, an institution focused on integrating education, research and healthcare under what it terms a “One Health” philosophy. Through the partnership, IMU Healthcare’s services become directly accessible to Paywatch users ahead of their scheduled payday.
Although Malaysia serves as the primary launch market, MediPay has reportedly been built with regional scalability in mind. Paywatch currently operates across six countries in Southeast Asia, and the company has indicated plans to extend the MediPay model to additional high-density employment markets, including Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia.
Turning to the economic context driving the initiative, workplace stress and presenteeism are projected to cost the Malaysian economy RM34 billion annually by 2030, equivalent to roughly 1.4 percent of national GDP. Data cited by the companies further indicates that 70.2 percent of Malaysia’s formal sector workforce earns RM5,000 or less per month, while a family of four in Kuala Lumpur requires approximately RM6,183 monthly to meet basic living expenses.
Consequently, this gap between income and expenses has meant that out-of-pocket medical treatments are frequently postponed, a pattern the companies argue contributes to cycles of physical exhaustion and professional burnout among employees. Richard Kim, Co-founder and CEO of Paywatch, addressed this dynamic directly.
“When 80% of working Malaysians are living strictly paycheck to paycheck, an unexpected medical expense can tip an employee into serious financial distress. By partnering with IMU Healthcare, we are dismantling the month-end barrier to healthcare access. When an individual can seek proactive medical care using money they have already earned, we remove the need for high-cost loans, reduce chronic stress, and directly restore focus and productivity to the Malaysian workforce,” said Kim.
For her part, Professor Dr Nazimah Idris, Medical Director and Consultant Obstetrics and Gynaecology at IMU Healthcare, framed the partnership around accessibility.
“At IMU Healthcare, we believe healthcare should be accessible when people need it, not only when they can afford it. We have long championed an integrated model of care, bringing together Conventional and Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chiropractic, Oral Healthcare and other health disciplines within one ecosystem to provide holistic care for our patients,” she said.
“Our partnership with Paywatch addresses one of the biggest barriers to timely healthcare — affordability. By enabling employees to use wages they have already earned to access the care they need, we are helping more Malaysians seek care when they need it, rather than when they can afford it. This reflects our shared commitment to building a healthier and more resilient society,” Professor Dr Idris added.
In terms of functionality, employees at Paywatch-partnered companies will be able to open the Paywatch app, select from a curated range of healthcare packages, and fund them directly through their real-time accrued salary basket. At launch, the partnership will offer seven preventive and holistic health services, spanning health screenings and therapeutic treatments, with further offerings expected to follow.
Paywatch has also sought to distinguish its model from other applications operating in the earned wage access space, which it characterises as functioning like high-fee salary advances or unregulated micro-loans. The company states that it is backed by major global institutional banks, which it says allows it to offer services at lower transaction rates than competitors.
From a workforce retention standpoint, the companies point to figures suggesting four in ten Malaysian employees are actively considering changing employers within the next 12 months, citing financial and workplace strain as contributing factors. Businesses, meanwhile, are said to be losing an average of 73.1 productive days per employee annually to absenteeism and presenteeism, translating to an average cost of RM2.27 million per year for mid-to-large enterprises.
Additionally, data referenced by Paywatch indicates that 46 percent of job seekers now actively look for earned wage access benefits when evaluating prospective employers. Against this backdrop, the companies position MediPay as more than a wellness perk, framing it instead as a retention strategy built around wages employees have already earned rather than employer-funded benefits.
Whether MediPay delivers on its stated productivity and retention outcomes will become clearer once the feature rolls out more broadly from September, and as the partnership progresses into its planned second phase covering additional treatment categories.
