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People start to acknowledge, accept and adopt fintech applications due to its flexibilities, compatibility, ease to use, security and usefulness. A growing body of research reveals a positive perception of micro-enterprises towards fintech instruments. Looking at the potential of the fintech platforms and tools in Malaysia, the purpose of this study is to look at the readiness of micro-entrepreneurs towards using it as a medium in generating more income and profit for their business.

This study uses a quantitative approach with 200 questionnaires distributed to micro-entrepreneurs in Malaysia. IBM SPSS was used to perform a preliminary analysis of the data (descriptive analysis), then partial least squares-structural equation modelling SmartPLS is used to test the hypothesised relationships.

This study found perceived ease of use H1 (β = 0.523, p < 0.01) and trust H4 (β = 0.211, p < 0.10) play an important role in readiness to adopt fintech. Whereas, security H3 (β = 0.068) and perceived usefulness, H2 (β = 0.120) are insignificant (rejected).

This study provides evidence on the factors that contribute most towards the inclination to use fintech application among micro-entrepreneurs. In fact, tightening the policy regarding the security matter could enhance the readiness of micro-entrepreneurs to use fintech application.

This study investigates factors that influence the readiness of micro-entrepreneurs to adopt fintech application, which were not considered by previous studies.

Because Malaysia decided to liberalize its property sector, investors have shown a considerable interest in the country’s property investment. Divided into five sub-sectors, Malaysia’s real estate is sought actively by foreign investors. However, to date, the sub-sectors performance analysis has never been researched for the purpose of investment diversification within the property sector. This paper aims to examine the performance of sub-sectors in the property market, namely, residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural and development land. This paper also assesses the portfolio diversification benefits within the sectors.

Quarterly data from 2002 or 2014 are used to analyze the performance of the Malaysia property market. The analysis is conducted in three phases, pre-liberalization, post-liberalization and overall period, because it considers the liberalization policy introduced in 2009. Statistically, the risk-adjusted return featuring Sharpe’s index is used to observe how these sub-sectors perform relative to each other. Correlation analysis is used to observe the existence of diversification benefits in terms of a Malaysia property context.

It is found that Malaysia’s real estate sub-sectors have different rankings during the pre- and post-liberalization periods. The difference is due to changes in their average return and the risk. During the post-liberalization period, risk for all sub-sectors has increased but has been well compensated by the return. The residential property sector maintains its ranking position as the best sub-sector for every risk investor’s encounter.

Due to wide range of differences and non-uniformity of costs associated with housings, for example tax rates, rental stream, LTV and others, this research focuses on values and data supplied by NAPIC only.

Although performance and portfolio diversification benefits have been tested in many Asian countries, none has tried to assess the Malaysia property. This research enables the policy maker to be informed on whether the sub-sectors are performing in accordance to country’s requirement and which sub-sectors need to be improved further.