Why can’t toll payment be deducted through eWallet on PLUS? Physical TNG card top ups are a chore

If you’ve ever been stuck at a toll booth due to “baki kurang”, you know the frustration. The worst part? There’s money in your eWallet, but the toll still refuses to let you through. Instead, it demands balance from your TNG card, which you’ve forgot to reload. This isn’t just your problem. It’s a system problem — one that millions of Malaysian motorists face daily.

But why is it not consistent? Some highways deduct from eWallet, and some from TNG card. The answer is PayDirect. If you’re using a TNG card that is linked to your eWallet, PayDirect bypasses the balance stored in the card in favour of your eWallet balance.

PayDirect was introduced in 2019, a couple of months after TNG launched the RFID pilot programme. Before that, it was all manual with cash at counters! This writer admits to being an extreme case, but the sole RM50 note I have is soon to survive eight months of 2025 and is looking good to last the entire year. Do people still have fat wallets these days?

It didn’t take long for TNG’s PayDirect to be accepted at all city highways in the Klang Valley (we have many, lost count), and some toll plazas in other states followed suit, such as the Butterworth Outer Ring Road, Sultan Abdul Halim Muadzam Shah Bridge (Second Penang Bridge) and the Bangunan Sultan Iskandar CIQ complex in Johor.

So, on some highways (or most highways, if you’re in the Klang Valley), toll payment is deducted straight from your TNG eWallet once you’ve linked your card – it’s simple, seamless and cashless. However, there’s an elephant in the room. At major highways like PLUS’ North South Expressway, and by extension the NKVE and Elite Highway – which together carry the bulk of Malaysian traffic – toll is still deducted from your TNG card balance.

This means that unless you keep topping up your physical card, you’re at risk of getting stuck at the toll gates. Never mind that there’s money in your TNG eWallet, the system ignores it.

We’ve heard of PayDirect coming to PLUS-operated highways for some time now – since 2019 in fact, the year the method was introduced. As recent as February this year, TNG said that the long-awaited introduction of PayDirect at PLUS will be happening soon, and that the approval process with PLUS is ‘nearing completion’. Half a year has passed and there’s been no update.

Of the seven million users of PayDirect, 50% of them “face limitations due to the lack of PayDirect coverage on PLUS highways, restricting their ability to fully benefit from the service,” TNG said in an event back in February, sounding like they’re very eager to close the loop and have everyone onboard.

If one’s on PayDirect and his/her daily Klang Valley commute does not involve PLUS-operated highways, toll payment is truly cashless, without the need to manually reload the TNG card. However, many of us have routes that involve the NKVE or Elite in our super-connected network – if this is also you, there’s still a need to top-up your TNG card periodically and maintain a healthy balance there.

Now, some might say that topping up the TNG card is a simple affair – and with today’s NFC cards, it’s pretty convenient and you can do it anywhere – but that’s still one more thing to monitor and execute in our busy urban life. It’s like another bill to pay, but one that has no fixed date. There’s also no ‘auto reload’ function for our physical cards, unlike eWallets.

We’ve all forgotten before, which is why there are so many cases of baki kurang at toll booths, something all of us hate (but are sometimes guilty of) as it backs up traffic at what’s already a choke point.

Launched in January this year, TNG eWallet’s SOS Balance feature – which delays toll payments for 24 hours (up to a maximum of RM80) if there is insufficient balance – assisted in over 700,000 transactions in less than a month from its launch. Of course, this feature is only helpful on highways that are linked to PayDirect.

Finally, one for the finance bro/sis. If you’re the kind who dislikes your funds sitting idle – as opposed to being ‘parked’ in an interest-paying money market fund-type of account (TNG eWallet’s GO+ is an example) – then you won’t want to have too much credit in your TNG card. But if you reload small amounts, you’ll have to do it more often, which means diligent or… baki kurang, sorry everyone.

With all the recent talk about “modernising” Malaysia’s toll collection, the bigger question to the Malaysian Highway Authority (LLM) is this: shouldn’t we fix the basics first? Right now, motorists still face inconsistent rules, where some highways let you go fully cashless, while others force you to reload physical cards like it’s 2005. That’s not progress; that’s inefficiency.

Why should drivers adapt to multiple systems when every open payment option can be fully digitalised under one nationwide standard? A single, unified toll payment method, working the same way on every highway isn’t just a convenience. It’s about efficiency, and bringing Malaysia’s toll network into the modern age.

Until that happens, motorists will keep paying the price in frustration, wasted time and needless congestion.

Highway users, what do you think?

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