Mobile payment systems in Malaysia: Its potential and consumers’ adoption strategies

Mobile payment system is a system that helps to unlock the power of the mobile phone to make payments, allowing registered users to pay for goods and services at anytime via SMS (Short Messaging Service). An example of mobile payment system in Malaysia is Mobile Money Wallet (MM wallet). It is designed by Mobile Money International Sdn Bhd to address the limitations and bottlenecks created by cash, cheques and credit cards.

For further information about MM wallet please visit:
http://www.neowave.com.my/mobilemoney_overview.asp
http://www.mmwallet.com/mmwalletfaq.htm

Current customer base and merchant
MM Wallet allows mobile user to receive money and make payments to anyone who has a mobile phone, or any Mobile Money merchants. As such, user can send or receive cash through sms. Moreover, users can make a call to get their mobile prepaid reload for Digi, Celcom, Maxis and also iTalk for their discounted call. The system also make it convenient for the users to buy product online which can help them save time and travelling cost.

With the MM wallet, merchant can now sell their product to anyone across town and country at anytime. Merchant can perform their business without the need to pay rental fee and open merchant account and the system also offer lower transaction fee at 1.5% for the merchant. It will definitely help to lower the business cost for the merchant.

For more information please visit http://www.neowave.com.my/mobilemoney_benefits.asp


How to encourage consumer to adopt this payment system
In order to encourage people to use mobile payment system, MM wallet has built more layers of security, so that users will have confidence and trust to use this system. Example of those security are security PIN which users are required to enter with the password when doing the transaction. Besides that, system are regularly maintained and audited by the regulatory body to ensure the system is running properly and avoid hacker to hack into the system to steal user information. Moreover, the system also requires a unique confirmation system to ensure no one can send money to the wrong person.

Electronic Currency

Electronic currency is a digital equivalent of paper currency and coins which enables secure and anonymous purchase of low-priced items, typically below US$10. In addition, electronic currency is applied in e-micropayment system. There are many different types of currency such as cash, personal checks, cashier's checks, money orders, credit cards, debit cards, bearer bonds, and so on. Typically, electronic currency involves the use of computer networks, internet and digital stored value systems.

Electronic currency payment system has brought numerous advantages to the users. One of the main advantages is the confidentiality and privacy of the users is protected. Current electronic currency systems vary in their effects on privacy from total anonymity, in which personally identifiable records are not created to audited systems that collect and store every aspect of each transaction. One of the most attractive features of electronic currency is that, unlike real cash, it is anonymous. In this case, when an electronic currency amount is sent from a customer to a merchant, it is not possible to obtain information about the customer. Unlike credit card companies that are able to collect a customer's spending habits and sell this data to third parties. Thus, by using electronic currency, the bank is unable to obtain personal information about the consumer and this adequately protects the privacy rights of the customer.

One of the ways of e-micropayment system is through Peppercoin. Peppercoin is an innovative payment platform that allows consumers to use credit or debit cards for small transactions. This will help merchants to avoid high processing fee for those consumer buying below $10 using credit cards. Besides that, Peppercoin aggregates small transactions to increase efficiency and lower merchants' cost.

As usual, every system also has disadvantages and electronic currency system is also not excluded. A major disadvantage to electronic currency is fraud. If a consumer somehow misplaces his private key and a perpetrator uses it to withdraw funds, the bank would never know and will not be able to track the perpetrator and the consumer would be liable.

In conclusion, electronic currency is has made it convenient for the consumer to purchase goods and services using currency such as credit card without the need to bring cash. This can lessen the possibility being rob and loss of cash. The implementation of electronic currency has not been fully accepted by the consumer due to internet breakdown, lack of skill and confidence and so on. However, once the electronic currency industry is able to ensure consumers that these transactions are secure and trustworthy, it will change the way we conduct our daily lives.

For further information, please refer to:

http://www.nextbillion.net/blogs/2005/12/13/cashless-transactions-at-the-bop-peppercoin

http://projects.takingitglobal.org/ecurrency

Credit card debt: Causes and prevention

Nowadays, credit cards are quite popular and most people having several credit cards with them. The credit card is really good for those people who like to purchase things when they may not have enough cash at that time. However, credit card debt results when the card user does not pay money that they have spent to the company. Therefore, debt accumulates and increases via interest and penalties.

Causes
Poor money management is one of the reasons why so many people accumulate lots of debt. Card user is not having a monthly spending plan and makes them unaware of where the money is going. They do not realize spending hundreds of dollars every month towards items that are useless and have no value in their life. This might force them to pay interest on these purchases every month.

Many people believe having too many credit cards in the wallet is representing sign of wealth. In fact having too many credit cards is one of the factors that drive a person towards credit card debt. Many people do not realize that every single money used from credit card has to be repaid and that too with interest. To avoid credit card debt the first thing to keep in mind is to have only those credit cards which are absolutely essential.

When the people know the knowledge for the causes of credit card debt, this will help a person stay away from it.


Prevention

Some of the people might be overspend or no control on spending, it is a need to start changes such behaviors. Firstly, card user needs to stop using credit cards, unless it is an urgent situation. The smart card user only uses the card in place of cash, or to obtain a purchase they can afford. Once card user has reduced credit card debt, they can stop worrying about falling deeper into debt.

Besides that, card user needs to make sure that paying bills on time each month. If they can’t pay the whole balance each month, then try to pay the highest amount possible. Otherwise the credit card debt will grow so much and they will find that unable to pay the minimum in a short time.


There are a lot of things to consider when trying reducing credit card debt. Make sure that card user takes the time to figure out what is benefit for them.

For further information please refers to:
Eliminating Credit Card Debt - 10 Easy Steps
http://www.articlesphere.com/Article/Eliminating-Credit-Card-Debt---10-Easy-Steps/121447

"Can I Get Out of Credit Card Debt?"
http://www.debtfirms.com/credit-card-debt.html

Phishing: Examples and its prevention methods

Do you know what phishing is? Phishing is pronouncing as fishing. It is not the fishing that uses a rod of wood, steel, or fiberglass with a line for catching fish. Phishing is an attempt to criminally and fraudulently acquire sensitive information. It creates a replica of an existing webpage to fool a user into submitting personal, financial, or passwords, such as credit card details. Usually, it sends an email that will direct the user to visit a website where they are asked to update personal information. However, this website that where asked to visit is a fake and set up only website to steal the user’s information.

Examples
There are a lot of examples of phishing in the internet. The most common target would be the Paypal, eBay, and online banks.

In 2003, many people received emails supposedly from eBay claiming that the user’s account was about to be suspended unless they clicked on the provided link and updated their credit card information where the genuine eBay already had their credit card information. This link that lead to the eBay website is a website that look like the genuine eBay website but actually it is a fake website where the HTML code being imitated closely by criminal or beguiler or so called “phisher”.

The second example is Paypal. In Paypal, there is a spelling mistake in the email and the presence of an IP address in the link is different from the link appear in the tooltip under the yellow box. These give you the clues of a phishing attempt.

Besides that, there are some examples for phishing in online bank, such as CitiBank and Citizens Bank. For online bank, usually they will use psychological tricks, known as social engineering, to trick the users. They usually trick on users’ fears. The fake email looks very real compare with the real Citicorp email. Moreover, the link in the email contains the name “Citibank” that users believe that it is an email from Citibank but actually it has nothing to do with Citibank. In fact, the link that appears in the text of the message is likely to have little relation to the actual link contained in the underlying HTML code.

Prevention Methods
There are several techniques can allow users to fight with phishing. The techniques are as following:-

1. Strengthen the Security
IT experts have created some features embedded in browsers to prevent phishing, such as extension or toolbars for browsers. For example, Mozilla Firefox uses Google anti-phishing software. Besides, some specialized spam filter can reduce the number of phishing emails that reach their addressees’ inboxes. Enhances personal firewalls and security software package and make sure that the security is the latest or up-to-date.

2. Do Not Respond to Emails Request of Personal or Financial Information
The “phisher” uses the psychological tricks to scare the users. They users can call the correlative party to do phone verification. It is safer to do so.

3. Do Not Directly Click on the Provided Link
It is better to do your own typing for the URL into your web browser yourself. Some of the URL may look alike to the real URL where it’s the fraudsters only mask the true destination.