Prepaid cash cards is a convenient and affordable solution for everyone now, it is just like the credit and debit card which gives consumers the ability to purchase products and services with no carry any cash with them. But there is some crucial different between them, consumers can only spend the balance before they have reloaded the card and it also known as pre-funded “stored-value” cards, which means prepaid cash card is not borrowing money from bank or other financial institution.

Generally, prepaid cash card gives an ideal on control and budget on spending and it do not need any requirements to register it. In contracts, using credit card will encounter a risk of getting into debt trap. Prepaid cash card is now steadily gaining in popularity because they eliminate the interest charges and it also giving a great alternative choice to solve the credit issue.

The Touch ’n Go (TNG) card is one of the common prepaid cash card that use in Malaysia on highway toll expressway, consumers no longer need to pay the toll fees by coin so it will speed up the queuing time. Furthermore, the Touch ’n Go even offer the Smart TAG card where the consumer’s vehicle can totally skip the queuing time by just install a device with plug in the Touch ’n Go card. Beside that, it have wider usage such as payment in petrol station, public transports, selected parking and theme park.

SmartRider, it can be use in Australia for the payment of transportation.

Octopus card, it can be use in Hong Kong for payment at supermarket, public transport, car park fees and etc.

EasyCard, it can be use in Taiwan for the payment of subway and boat ticket.

Mobile payment system has been widely introduced in developing country years ago. However, it has only been popular recently in Malaysia. The lack of advertisements and less involvement by required authorities are the critical reasons for the late introduction of mobile payment system in Malaysia.

Mobile payment system is a system that involves collection of money from a consumer through a mobile device such as his/her mobile phone, Smart Phone, PDA, or other similar devices. Mobile money plays an important role in mobile payment system.

Mobile money is an innovative mobile payment system that gives you the convenience of cash-free and card-free shopping as well as making remote payments. In this case, mobile device acts like a wallet. However, it does not hold your cash. It holds the value that you have in your registered savings, current or credit card account with participating banks.

Mobile Money International Sdn Bhd is one of the biggest mobile payment service providers in Malaysia. Mr. Lee Eng Sia sees the opportunity and potential of mobile money and thus initiated the idea of mobile payment system introduced in Malaysia. The company objective is to provide Merchants and consumers with a convenient and secure Mobile Payment and Mobile Commerce platform.

In accordance with the system designed by Mobile Money, a registered consumer is required to send a SMS which indicates his/her registered 6-digit security pin to merchant’s mobile phone numbers or bank accounts to make payments for goods and services purchased anytime, anywhere. In the same time, it allows user to receive money from anyone, from anywhere, at anytime. It also provides a list of miss call numbers for you to check your account, to get SMS instructions to purchase products and to top up your Money Mobile wallet, or to check your balances and last transactions. Illustration below shows how the mobile transaction works.

Although mobile payment system is not a fresh term anymore, however it still has huge potentials in Malaysia. The introduction of mobile money has benefited both participating merchants and consumers. Mobile money enables involved merchants to take online order without the requirement for online shoppers to disclose their credit card information. In the same time, it gives online merchants another option in the selection of payment gateway to be implemented. Furthermore, the cost-effectiveness of mobile money has make mobile money becomes favorable to merchants. In the same time, the beneficial functions provided by mobile money such as reliability and convenience will soon impose a significant growth in e-commerce industry in Malaysia. Thus, it will attract more merchants to adopt online selling as an extra sales channel, enhancing the use of mobile money.

On the other hand, consumers who use mobile money service are able to enjoy the convenience to pay anyone, including to any bank accounts from anywhere, at anytime. You can pay various bills and your loan repayments at home. The convenience, enhanced security and guaranteed safety promised add in more value into mobile payment system. With mobile money, consumer can start to buy and save from participating mobile commerce platform. In this case, cost saving and convenience have been important elements in attracting consumers to involve in mobile payment system. In addition, the functions provided by mobile money are additional add-in value in attracting consumer in using mobile money. It can function like a credit card if a consumer applies for a “Pay by Mobile Phone” credit card account. Therefore, the consumer will be billed by the bank by month’s end. Alternatively, it can function as a Debit Card if the consumer applies for savings or current account. The amounted consumed will be deducted directly from the account upon successful transaction.

In conclusion, mobile payment system may seem to be attractive and beneficial based on above discussion. However, mobile payment system in Malaysia is not well established. Consequently, merchants’ involvements, as well as consumers’ supports are greatly appreciated and required to popularize mobile payment system.

Electronic currency also knows as electronic money, electronic cash, electronic currency or digital currency. Electronic currency refers to money or scrip which is exchanged only electronically. Normally, it involves use of computer networks, the internet and digital stored value systems. The examples of electronic currency are the Electronic Funds Transfer and the direct deposit. Electronic currency can provide many benefits such as convenience increased efficiency of transactions and lower transaction fees.

Peppercoin is a cryptographic system for processing micropayments. Micropayments are means for transferring very small amounts of money, in situations where collecting such small amounts if money with usual payments systems is impractical or very expensive, in term of the amount of money being collected. The peppercoin system was developed by Silvio Micali and Ron Rivest and first presented at the RSA Conference in 2002.Peppercoin Inc. was a company that offers services based on the perception method. The “Peppercoin” method uses universal aggregation, which we sometimes times also call cryptographic selection. The Peppercoin system ensures that consumers are never billed for more than he has spent.

Peppercoin’s micropayment system is the first that allows online merchants, banks and other companies build market adoption quickly through a consumer-friendly, pay-as-you-go approach that eliminate prepayments. Peppercoin integrates easily with existing business models and systems to accelerate revenues and increase profits while dramatically lowering transaction and customer services cost. Peppercoin collect 5-9% of transaction cost from the merchant. In 2007, Peppercoin was bought by Chockstone for an undisclosed amount.

Nowadays, credit cards had become major spending tools in our community. There are more people applying for credit cards instead of carrying cash in wallets or purses. We cannot deny that credit cards had brought a lot of conveniences to us, but, on the other hand, it also brought some disadvantages. One of the major issues that rose recently is credit card debts. It is a situation where many card holders owed too many debts by using credit cards and it leads to bankruptcy.

One of the common reasons that cause the credit card debts would be did not manage the finance well. Most of the card holder did not prepare budgets that show them the amount that they had spent by using credit cards. It is because they were not using cash. It is difficult for them to realize whether they were over budget by using credit cards. Another common cause that happens always would be too much credit cards. There are too many promotions nowadays. Many people were attracted by the promotions and started to apply cards one by one. At the end, they will overspend because they need to spend more to get the benefits from the cards’ promotions. Besides that, card holders with many cards will start to pay a card’s debt with another card. Things go round and round and at the end, the cards holder will start to realize that it is a bad idea. They will never finish paying debts.

Therefore, card holders need to prevent themselves from being credit card debtors. What they need to do is simple. First, create a budget. A good budget will helps card holders stay out of debts. They can clearly know how much they can spend and how much had they spent in a period. Secondly, pay off the balance on the credit card with the highest interest rate first. Many card holders did not notice this important point and leads to pay more interest. Card holders should pay the credits with the higher interest first to avoid the debts from increasing too much.

As a conclusion, the simplest way to avoid from being credit card debtors is by using cash instead of credit cards. One or two credit cards for emergency use are enough for a person. We must use credit card wisely to get out from debts.

Nowadays, people rely on computers to create, store and manage critical information. Consequently, it is important for users to aware that computer security plays a major role in protecting their data from loss, damage, and misuse. Similarly, online security has been online trader’s main concern in protecting their websites from potential threats, such as phishing, security hacking, information theft, virus, worms and etc.

However, the increasingly developed technologies sarcastically increase the risk every computer user faced. Everyone who owns a computer with internet connection is able to equip themselves with ‘hacking’ knowledge by making some research online. Internet provides the opportunities for users to share the knowledge without filtering the content. Therefore, everyone can learn skills that may jeopardize online security via internet and therefore increase the online security risk.

Nowadays, computer users are facing the threats of cybercrime, phishing, internet and network attacks such as computer viruses, worms and Trojan horses and back doors.

Cybercrime is defined as online or internet-based illegal acts. Hackers, crackers and corporate spies who have advanced computer and network skills access computers and networks illegally with the intent of destroying data, stealing proprietary data and information.

Phishing is a scam in which a perpetrator sends an official looking e-mail that attempts to obtain your personal information and financial information. For example, some phishing e-mail messages ask you to reply with your information, or a pop up window that looks like a website, that collects the information. The damages caused by phishing can be crucial. The following case illustrates potential threat caused by phishing.

For example, in 21 June 2007, a spear phishing incident at the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) stole sensitive U.S. defense information, leading to significant changes in identity and message-source verification at OSD. This incident has cost administrative disruptions and personal inconveniences, as well as huge financial loss in making system recovery.

Internet and network attack that jeopardize security include virus, worm, and Trojan horse. Virus is a piece of code that is secretly introduced into a system in order to corrupt it or destroy data. Virus attack can damage the operating system, causing the loss of data and other possible losses. A worm is a program that copies itself repeatedly. The repeatedly copied files use up the available space and slow down a computer operating speed. On the other hand, a Trojan horse is a program that hides within or looks like a legitimate program. Although they seem to be harmless, they may however be triggered if certain condition is certified.

A back door is a set of instructions in a program that allow users to bypass security control when accessing a program, computer, or network. Once perpetrators gain access to unsecure computers, they often install a back door or modify an existing program to include a back door, enabling them to continue to access the computers remotely without the user’s knowledge.

In conclusion, risk exposed by computer users is increasing with the increasing developed technology. Therefore, safeguards developed must be always up to date to enhance the defenses against online security threats. In the same time, users must be educated and informed about the crucial damages and loss caused by imposing online security threats.

Phishing is a criminal and fraudulently activity carried out on computers to acquire sensitive information such as try get hold of a person’s user name, password and credit card details. The most common way that phishers will attempt to get this information is by email or instant messaging and often directs users to enter details at a website. Normally, PayPal, eBay and online bank are phisher’s common targets. The damages cause by the phishing is that the victims may incur the financial loss due to denial access to the email.

There are some examples of the phishing:

The email looks like a real Citicorp email and the link in the email contains the name "Citibank". However, it has nothing to do with Citibank. To see the real link in an email message, right click on the text and choose “properties” from the context menu. To see an example of a faked link, try to log on to http://www.microsoft.com

This is an eBay phishing email includes the eBay logo in an attempt to gain credibility. The email notes that the billing information in the account is error and the eBay member need to login and verify the charges.

There are some methods use to prevent the phishing such as never reply to email that request your personal information or financial information. You should be suspicious when one sends you any email to ask you update your personal information or confirm it. Besides that, use anti virus and anti spam software and update them all regularly to ensure that you are blocking from new virus. The anti spam software can be use to analysis the content within the message or in urls and delete the phishing mail while the normal email gets filtered through to your inbox. Another way to prevent the phishing is review credit card and bank account statement regularly to ensure that no unauthorized transactions have been made. If your statement is late, call your credit card company or bank to confirm your billing address and account balances.

What and why we need third-party certification?

Third-party certification is a scientific process by which a product, process or service is reviewed by a reputable and unbiased third party to verify that a set of criteria, claims or standards are being met. A third-party certification can reduce the time and expense needed for identifying, selecting and purchasing the products. Third-party certification is not the final word. The consumer has the final say. But a third-party certification claim is an important factor to consider when selecting a product.

The basic values of a third-party certification are to provide a measure of conformity, satisfy customer demands and limit supplier risks without the expense of repeating tests. Certifying organizations are anxious to maintain their reputation and sustain their integrity and will provide an excellent way to validate trustworthy of website while protecting consumers from myths, misconceptions, misleading information and “fly by night” manufacturers.

Example:

MSC Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd is one of the popular Certification Authority (CA) in Malaysia and it is recognized by most of the Malaysian as a mark of safety and quality. MSC Trustgate has joint venture with the Verisign which is the largest certificate authority behind the encryption and authentication on the Internet in American. Verisign provide the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) technology to MSC Trustgate, this is a cryptographic protocols that provide secure communications on the Internet for such things as web browsing, e-mail, Internet faxing, instant messaging and other data transfers. Maybank2u is using the MSC Trustgate SSL to enables encryption of sensitive information during online transactions.