I think it was mentioned that businesses were exempt from this limitation.
This is almost unbelievable to me, that a gov't would limit citizens' access to cash. If that isn't a huge slap in the face and a threat to basic freedoms, I don't know what is. Malaysian people ought to be protesting in the street, even if they wouldn't be affected by the limitation.
I think the Malaysian gov't is using a backhanded method of making its people go cashless, by using the excuse that large amounts of cash in people's hands equals crime. The U.S. gov't stopped making bills larger than $100 for that reason, but at least there's no limit to what people in the states can carry. Heaven help us if that ever happens.
The limitation is not about the amount of cash they can have, but the number of cash transactions that can be done by individuals or companies. We don't yet know how the regulation is written in the bill, per transaction or per certain period of time. If per transaction, we can divide one large transaction into several small cash transactions. If per person per transaction per new day is really limiting.
The policy of limiting cash transactions is not a threat to basic freedom but instead is a good tool to protect the basic freedom of society from corruptors and criminals. Corruption money can be diverted to empower people's desires, such as health, education and equitable distribution of infrastructure.
The idea of limiting cash transactions has already been applied in several countries and in fact, cash is indeed used to avoid tracking. 100% of arrest operations by the Corruption Eradication Committee in Indonesia are always obtained in cash (US dollars, Singapore dollars or Rupiah) in a fantastic amount. When one of the corruptors was arrested in Indonesia in his safe deposit box, he found a cash amount of USD 5 million that was allegedly the result of corruption.
Restrictions on cash transactions will certainly affect transactions in remote areas that rely on cash transactions for the purchase of real sample items that I will face if there are restrictions on cash transactions for payment of purchases of live lobsters to fishermen whose value is around USD 8000 / transaction. the fishermen refused to use the transfer method because the cash would be immediately distributed to divers after depositing the lobster to me.