Armed with a university degree in Information Systems Engineering and experience in FinTech, dynamic entrepreneur Jeff Chew has successfully delivered mobile and internet banking initiatives for one of the largest banking groups in Malaysia. In an interview with TMV, Chew talks about his company, Altecflex Sdn Bhd, a provider of digital services and solutions and his vision for the digital technology growth in the country.

During Jeff Chew’s three-year tenure as a Project Manager for a digital banking project, Chew and his project team members used to discuss at lengths about digitalization in the future and its impact on the financial industry. 

It was during these discussions that Chew felt that, as a FinTech specialist, he could not continuously work on the latest technology for digitalization projects as there were limited opportunities within the organisation. 

“I believed that digitalization is not limited to the banking industry only, but across many industries as well. As a result, I had decided then to set up my own digital solutions company,” says Chew.

“My company is Altecflex Sdn Bhd and we call ourselves, ATF – Aspire Technology Frontier. We provide a wide range of digital services and solutions to help organisations achieve and optimize their digital capability and productivity.”

Chew continues, “We are a software house specialising in FinTech, providing end-to-end digital development and delivery. Our team members comprise of full-stack developers for front-end and back-end development and solution architects with the focus on improving UI/UX experience. Our strength lies in having tech developers who are specialised in React framework and latest technology.”

“”React framework is a specialised skillset, but it’s difficult to find talent with such skillsets in the market. So, we hire young people especially fresh graduates – we train and develop them early for this skill. We also hire young talents who already have experience in end-to-end development. Hiring and training young talents is part of our company’s culture – that’s what makes us different from other software houses,” says the Founder of Altecflex.

ATF was established in late 2018, and within a short period of time, Chew and his team have been actively involved in a number of digital transformation projects for banks and insurance companies. The first few months were tough for Chew and his partner, who basically started the company from scratch with no track record or any project in hand. 

“We quit our respective jobs and started ATF with nothing. But eventually we secured clients and projects purely based on our past work experience, reputation and network. We are currently recognized by our clients for being technically good and for delivering projects on time. From there, we gradually received more referrals and secured bigger projects,” says Chew.

Although ATF mostly work on digitalization projects for the financial industry, it is also exploring similar initiatives for the government sector, supply chain and logistics, and small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

“We don’t limit ourselves to the financial industry because the technology used is the same except that it is applied in different sectors or industries for different objectives. For example, FinTech is about leveraging on digital technology to earn revenues whereas digital technology in the government sector (govtech) is about facilitating the city or the state to move towards a modern city. Govtech is also about how digital technology can reduce government administrative-related work,” explains Chew.

When ATF first began, there were only two persons in the team – Chew and his co-founder. Since then, the company has grown rapidly to a staff-strength of eleven people. The team is anticipated to further increase to more than twenty people within a couple of months on the back of more projects in the pipeline. 

“Our vision is to strengthen digital technology growth in Malaysia, and to do that, we aim to source the right talent with the right skillset. We train and develop talents while providing them room to grow and to explore the limitless opportunities in digital technology.”