Mobile Payment Systems in Malaysia: Its Potentials and Consumers’ Adoption Strategies

Mobile Payment Systems
Its Potentials and Consumers' Adoption Strategies

Mobile payments are payments made using mobile handsets and other devices, either to directly purchase or to authorize payment for goods and services. Such devices are playing an increasing and evolving role in the wider development of electronic payment systems around Asia Pacific.

The uses of mobile payment system are money transfers person-to-person (C2C) and to businesses (C2B), buying ring tones, concert tickets, taxi and parking payments, credit card/checking transfers, delivery/mobile business payments, music (content), gift cards.

Easy payment translates to larger sales and a greater instance of impulse purchasing. We all know that if you make the purchasing process easy and remove any thought of how much you are spending then the tendency is to spend more. Credit cards have been a boon to impulse spending. This has been a real plus for merchants as it has enabled the public to have a quick, easy, efficient and cashless way to make purchases. The move from cashless to cardless is the next logical step in payment evolution. The rise of the cell phone as a key piece of personal technology will continue to grow; its use as a payment device seems an inescapable and inevitable extension to its utility.

The payment industry and mobile phone manufacturers are looking to use near field communication (NFC) as the base technology. NFC technology is an extension of RFID that combines a smart card interface and reader into a single device. NFC in mobile phones is likely next in line in the evolution for mainstream payment systems. Long term, all phones will have a NFC chip built into the phone.

Maxis Communications Berhad is currently trialling a mobile phone multi-payment service incorporating credit card and prepaid transit payments with Maybank, Visa International and Touch ‘n Go. Maxis "Touch to Pay" employs Near Field Communications (“NFC”) technology which leverages on a short-range wireless connectivity standard embedded in mobile phones.

Maxis also plans to offer a special user interface that offers an array of functionalities which will allow customers payment details, credit balance and recent transactions on the mobile phone screen at any point in time. Upon successful completion of the ‘touch to pay’ trial and commercial roll out next year, Maxis also plans to expand the NFC application in the area of “service discovery”, which will enable mobile phones to read “smart posters” implanted with Radio Frequency Identification (“RFID”) Tag. This will open up a new information channel for customers to gain access to bus routes and timetables, special offers and coupons at selected retail outlets.

Electronic Currency : PayLoadz

PayLoadz gives opportunity for users to sell and buy their products on the internet effectively. The system works in conjunction with PayPal or Google Checkout to provide the users to sell a digital product the platform to do so. It is especially useful to merchants wanting to sell their goods to customers right from their own web site or in online auctions. Any electronic product that can be downloaded can be marketed at PayLoadz. This includes video, audio, eBooks and software. No special programming or server requirements needed - just cut and paste the HTML code that is provided.

The way PayLoadz works is like this. When the buyer click on the product they like on the internet. After that a window will prompt out asking for the user's PayPal or Google Checkout Username and Password. If they do not have an account, they will be given the opportunity to create one or to check out without creating an account using a credit card or bank account as their funding source.After the payment process successfully made, the PayPal or Google Checkout server communicates with the PayLoadz server and provides the transaction details to the system. After that, an email which contains custom “thank you” text that the users specify during the product creation process, and a link for users to download their product. Or they are redirected to the download page, immediately after payment, that provides them instant access to the purchase. After the whole process is done, the users will receive a notification of payment through the mail.

By using PayLoadz, users can enjoy:

• Access to international markets
• the differences between physical trades and trading via internet is, the products can be exhibited to the world at one time. It means that the products can be introduced through the internet whenever the internet users drop by or found the item that the seller is posted and at the same time, there can be a lot of users around the world are viewing the items posted.
  
• Quick and easy implementation
• by using the Electronic Currency, the trades can be easily done. In this case, if using PayLoadz is used. Just need to register the PayLoadz account and PayPal or Google Checkout to guarantee the transactions.
  

Credit Card Debts: Causes and Prevention

Credit Card Debts

Causes and Prevention

What is credit card? A credit card is a system of payment named after the small plastic card issued to users of the system. A credit card allows consumers to purchase products or services without cash and to pay for them at a later date. To qualify for this type of credit, the consumer must open an account with a bank or company, which sponsors a card.

If you have credit cards, but have not yet let your spending get out of hand, then now is the time to take stock of your position and make some decisions about your financial future. Ask yourself what do you want those credit cards for? Do you just want them so that you have a source of payment in emergencies, to shop occasionally online, or when you travel abroad? Or do you plan on going on a shopping spree and spending the rest of the year struggling to clear the balance? Most people do not intend to ever use up their credit limits and max out their credit cards, but it is surprisingly easy to do, and can be very difficult to undo.

Most of the credit card users only pay the interest and the minimum amount of principal when the debt is due, thus never fully repaying the entire sum. This is one of the major factor credit card debts cause.

Some of the credit card users don't know where they spend or spending without plan or budget. This is because they have credit cards with them so they can spend easily without thinking. When they come to pay the credit card debts, they will face difficulty to pay back and feel regret because they spend so much in the begining.

Prevention

Credit card users must manage their finance well. Try to set a budget for the monthly spending on credit card. Credit card users must know the interest rate charge by the credit card company. Don't always pay for the minimum payment only, try to pay all the balance in the credit card statements.

Next, credit card users have to pay the balance on time every month to avoid the credit card company charge high interest on the balance. Credit card users also must use the credit card like cash, not like a credit card. Always use credit card according to the budget that have set every month.

All of this will help credit card users to prevent from the credit card debts increase and get charge high interest on the balance.

Phishing: Examples and Its Prevention Methods

Phishing

Examples and Its Prevention Methods

Phishing is a scam in which the attacker sends an email purporting to be from a valid financial or eCommerce provider. Identity thieves and other criminals often use "phishing" scams, one of the fastest growing internet crimes, to steal personal information from a vast number of people. Phishing attacks use 'spoofed' e-mails and fraudulent websites designed to fool recipients into divulging personal financial data such as credit card numbers, account usernames and passwords, social security numbers.

The following are examples of what a phishing scam e-mail message might look like:

How to Prevent ?
There are some ways to help us to prevent phishing scam. Firstly, never click on the links in email messages. It can be extremely difficult to identify which are legitimate and which are spoofed. Go directly to the website of your financial institution and log in as usual. If there is a need to update some information, you will be informed when you log in.

Secondly, review credit card and bank account statements as soon as you receive them to check for unauthorized charges. If our credit cards are being used by other people, we will see the amount in the bank statement.

Thirdly, we should always be skeptical. Most legitimate companies do not send requests to update our information. Those that make these requests are finding that most people are suspicious and ignore the request.

Fourthly, use anti-virus software and a firewall, and keep them up to date. Besides that, don’t email personal or financial information. This is because; other people can hack our email and take information from there.

Finally, in order to avoid this e-mail to ever land in your inbox you need to use a phishing filter. One of the most common ones at the moment is the Bayesian Filter that allows you to blacklist or white list certain individuals. It also easily integrates to popular email clients such as MS outlook.

How to Safeguard Our Personal and Financial Data?

How to Safeguard Our Personal and Financial Data?

Nowadays, there are many ways that other people can obtain our personal information and financial data. For example, some syndicates steal wallets that contain our identification and steal our mail, including our bank and credit card statements. From that, they can know our personal and financial data. Then they will create a new credit card or identification card by using our data.

There are several ways that we can safeguard our personal and financial data. Firstly, we should memorize our passwords. Don’t record our password on papers and carry it in the wallets. We also should not use our date of birth as our password. This is because other people can know our password for our atm card if we use our date of birth as password.

Secondly, we should never give our personal or financial information over the phone or Internet unless we initiated the contact. We also should not download files that were sent to us by strangers or click on hyperlinks from people whom we don’t know. It is dangerous to do that because other people have the chance to hack into our computer after we download some files. Besides that, we should use a firewall program on our computer, especially if we leave our computers connected to the Internet 24 hours a day.

Thirdly, we should report lost or stolen credit cards immediately. This step is to prevent our cards being used by other people. Besides that, we should always check our monthly credit card and bank statements for unusual activity. Once we find out something unusual then we need report to the bank.

Finally, we need to protect our personal information. We only share credit card or other personal information when we are buying from a company that we know and trust. We need to know who we are dealing with. We should not do business with any company that won’t provide its name, street address and telephone number.