The Application of Pre-paid cash card for consumer

Nowadays, majority of the consumers like to use pre-paid cash card when buying products that they are needed. Why consumers like to use pre-paid card? The main reason would be they no need bring a lot of cash on hand during shopping time. It reduces the risk that the cash on hand being rob by thief.

Consumers need to reload the pre-paid card in order to make sure that there is no credit balance. Consumers can reload their pre-paid card by cash at bank, post office, Payzone or PayPoint terminals or through bank transfer.

Application of pre-paid cash card for consumers :

1. Touch' n go - It is a form of pre-paid cash card that can be used for toll payment, KTM , LRT and etc. Consumers should reload the card when there is a credit balance.
2. Online purchase - User also can use pre-paid cash card to make payment when conducting online purchase
3. Prepaid card for mobile phone - Consumers enable to use this card to top up the balances.
4. Withdraw cash - Consumers can use this card to withdraw money from ATM machine.

Reference :
- Master Card Website
- Guide to Prepaid Cards

Credit card debts : Causes and Prevention

What is credit card debt? Why there is credit card debt exist? How to solve this problem?

Credit card debt is an example of unsecured consumer debt. This will occur when consumers continuously used credit card to make payment. The debts will be increased due to there is an interest charge on the credit payment. Therefore, nowadays, many people owe credit card debts and they are unable to repay the debts and interest charged by bank.

Causes of credit card debts:

Poor money management - Consumers may not have a proper plan for money spending over the month. Therefore, the money they spend is more than their monthly income. As a result, when they received the bank statement from bank, they are unable to pay the debts.

Less Income, more expenses - Due to current economic condition ( inflation ), all products' price has been increased rapidly. In other words, this shows that expenses that occur will increase if compare to last few years. As a consequence, income is unable to cover all the expenses, so it may lead to use credit card to make payment first.

No saving - Sometimes, when there is an unanticipated event that need a huge amount of money, because of consumer has no saving in the bank and therefore they may use credit card to setttle the payment first.

Prevention of credit card debts :

Proper Money Management - You should determine your monthly income and needed expenses, and plan the expenses that is neccesary over the month. And if there still have money at the end of the month, you should save the money into bank for future use.

Avoid extra expenses - Those expenses that are extra can eliminate it. For example, having dinner at home rather than at restaurant.

Use cash to make payment - You can settle all the paymeny by using cash, this is because no interest will be charged on the cash. In addition, you should reduce the number of using credit card when make payment.

References :
- Top 10 causes of debt
- 3debtconsolidation - Top 10 Causes of debt
- How to avoid Credit Card Debt

A review on e-tailing - Using Touch n Go card to buy fast food in Malaysia will be a reality

Today, I am going to share with you all about what I have read from a post in My E-commerce. The post is disclosed that Touch n Go card could be used to buy fast food from 21 outlets.

After reading the post, I personally think that this implementation might not be as success as what Hong Kong’s Octopus card has done, due to the culture in Malaysia. Touch n Go is design for those who are run out of time, which ease the users and save their time while they are making payment. However, Malaysians prefer to use cash, or use future money to buy things (at least I am one of them who think like this). It is popular and successful in transportation area, such as use in LRT, KTM, and Highway Toll, but this is because when we use the card in these facilities, we could really just touch and go, where we do not need to wait it to count the cost.

However, if it implement in fast food area, we have to wait the cashier too. We can just prepare the money while they are preparing the food for us, and just wait a while for the small change. Besides, Touch n Go is successful in transportation area because it is targeting in all drivers and public transports’ passengers. However, if Touch and Go is aiming for fast food area, it is targeting on those who buy fast food through drive through, which is quite specific and smaller market.

Besides, there is another card, which is similar to Touch n Go, known as Zing Card. It is offered by various banks, where you could register if you are a visa or master card holder. This card offer an auto reload feature, which could be a threat for Touch n Go.

In conclusion, I think that this implementation is hard to be use in Malaysia, due to the culture in Malaysia. It might be successful, if the company could offer the card to be use in more area, and increase the availability of the services.

Electronic Currency

Electronic currency, or also known as e-currency, is the electronic money that uses to make payment on internet, such as e-gold and PayPal. Basically, there are 2 types of electronic currency, where the different of these 2 types are their backed base. For instance, e-gold is backed by gold, whereas PayPal is backed by hard currency.

There are benefits for using e-currency, which are:

E-currency can be used on the internet related commercial applications
By using electronic currency, we could buy things through online, without applying credit card, or any others card.

Credit card information will be secure
We do not know how well are the sellers are working on the security of our data. Thus, through using electronic currency, our credit card information could be secured. This is because electronic currency does not need any of your credit card information. All you need to do is to buy the pin number from the shop, and key it into the website that you wishes to make payment with.

Convenient and efficient while making payment
Both sellers and buyers could just click “confirm” button to finish the process. No further steps are needed.

In conclusion, e-currency is value of money in the form of electronic, stored in a system. Merchants do not need to communicate with the bank to get their money. In fact, they will just need to claim it from the electronic currency issuers, such as e-gold and PayPal.

Additional Information:

- E-currency company introduction

- Wikipedia - Electronic Money