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Dear Parents,

As we step into a brand-new year, we’d like to take a moment to thank you for trusting Vircle to be part of your child’s financial journey. We hope 2026 brings your family good health, joy, and many meaningful milestones.

 

We would like to share an important update regarding card top-ups on your Vircle e-wallet. These changes are driven by new global card-network regulations and they will take effect from January 2026.

 

We understand that changes to top-up methods are never ideal, and we want to be upfront, clear, and supportive as we walk you through what this means for you and your family. 

Why The Changes?

From 31st January 2025 (excluding grace period for full compliance), all e-wallets and financial apps worldwide are required to comply with a new card-network regulation known as Account Funding Transactions (AFT). This is part of the enhanced global anti-money laundering (AML) and fraud-prevention requirements enforced by Visa™ and accepted by Mastercard™.

 

Under these rules, e-wallet top-ups will no longer be treated as regular online purchases, but instead as fund transfers from a card account.

What Does This Mean For You?

1. How card top-ups are processed

  • A new card processing partner gateway & bank will be introduced in the app. The user experience will remain as is so you will not experience drastic changes in the app.

  • Card top-ups will be treated as fund transfers, not spending transactions by your bank.

  • All Malaysian-issued Visa™ and Mastercard™ cards are compliant with AFT and will continue to work on Vircle.

2. Foreign issued cards

  • Foreign issued Visa™ debit and credit cards will no longer be supported for top-ups due to additional AFT restrictions imposed to our partner bank.

  • Foreign issued Mastercard™ is accepted by Vircle, but approval depends on whether your foreign bank has implemented AFT compliance. This may lead to higher rejections.

Please be assured that this is not unique to Vircle. Most major e-wallets in Malaysia adopted these same requirements earlier in 2025 and have similar limitations with foreign cards.

Recommended Top-up Options

To make top-ups easier and more reliable, we strongly encourage the following options:

  • FPX Online Banking – remains fully available and widely used

  • DuitNow Interbank Transfer – recently launched, allowing direct top-ups from your preferred bank or eWallet

  • Wise™ transfers – available for international parents using Wise multi-currency accounts. Wise™ supports DuitNow transfer to your Vircle eWallet.

Learn more about the financial institutions that allow DuitNow transfers to Vircle here:👉 https://www.vircle.com/duit-now

Introduction of 1% Credit Card Top-Up Convenience Fee

We would also like to remind parents that the 1% credit card top-up convenience fee, which was announced at the beginning of 2025, will now be implemented.

  • Originally planned for February 2025, this fee was deferred to minimise disruption

  • From 15 January 2026, the 1% fee will be progressively introduced

  • Full implementation will take effect on 1 February 2026

The fee applies only to credit card top-ups and will be clearly shown in-app before you confirm a top-up

A Note From Vircle

We would also like to remind parents that the 1% credit card top-up convenience fee, which was announced at the beginning of 2025, will now be implemented.

  • Originally planned for February 2025, this fee was deferred to minimise disruption

  • From 15 January 2026, the 1% fee will be progressively introduced

  • Full implementation will take effect on 1 February 2026

The fee applies only to credit card top-ups and will be clearly shown in-app before you confirm a top-up

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