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

Mobile payment system is a new alternative payment system which allowed the consumer to do payment by using mobile phone. It is a secure and convenient way to transfer the money electronically at anytime and everywhere. Moreover, mobile payment system let the customers to pay for any services such as transportation fare, books, magazines and even the digital goods such as music, ringtones.

Mobile payment has been adopted by many countries such as Singapore, Australia, and Malaysia. One of the company which has been adopted the mobile payment system in Malaysia is Mobile Money International Sdn Bhd. However, user is required to download the “mobile money ATM” in order to create an effective mobile payment. Mobile money ATM is an application that uses in the mobile phone and helps the user to transfer money to an appropriate person. By using this application, user can pay their bills, bank, and friends, reload prepaid, pay merchants, and remit money. As a result, it helps to make the user’s life more easily.

At this point of time, most of the consumers are more preferred to use cash money rather than mobile money. In order to encourage the consumers to adopt this payment system, awareness of the consumers is one of the important elements. The government should try to introduce the usefulness and way to use the system. This is because most of the consumers have zero knowledge with the mobile payment system. Furthermore, we should improve the security of the mobile payment system in order to prevent any fraud which will be possibly occurred. Others than that, supporting regulatory and legal framework should be provided toward the payment system in order to improve the reliance of consumers. As a consequence, it will increase the trust and confident of the consumers toward the system. Other than that, the infrastructure of the payment should be widened. It will make the consumers to be more convenience in assessing to the system.



Related links:
http://www.liewcf.com/blog/archives/2007/05/m-money-by-maxis-and-maybank/

http://www.mobile-money.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_payment

http://www.bis.org/review/r080605d.pdf

Credit Card Debts: Causes and Prevention

Financial illiteracy
Many people get their first credit card as soon as they are allowed to. They don't understand how money works and grows, how to save and invest for a rainy day, especially teenagers or sometimes even younger. The schools don't teach about it, parents also seldom ask you sit down and explained about it. Many teenagers treat credit cards as "free money" and buy anything that they want without showing any concern of how they are actually going to pay for it.
Prevention:
You are responsible for your life and your money anyway. Get educated and get in control. You will be surprised at how powerful you'll feel when you are making thoughtful decisions about where and when to spend your money.


Emergence of online shopping
Online shopping is become more friendly and convenient to the user. Whenever the users have possessed a credit card, they can just buy the things through online and treat credit card as a useful leaner wallet. This will result in overspending while surfing on those online shopping website. Furthermore, if you are involve in gambling websites. It can be addictive, hard to stop and loans are freely available by using credit card.
Prevention:
Do you really require such a high credit limit on your card? Know your limits and you will automatically spend less. Keep a running tally in writing of your weekly or monthly spending versus you budget, and update it before each purchase. This will help you to eliminate the risk that you overspend during the month.


Lifestyle maintenance
Expensive cars, luxury houses and etc are the big expense along the way. They treat credit card as money from windfall. Furthermore, spending tomorrow's money today is very tempting, especially if you believe that tomorrow will come no matter what. Therefore, people may then rely on credit card to get by.
Prevention:
It is important to communicate with your spouse or significant other and your children about finances. Keep the lines of communication open and discuss financial goals and spending styles. Spending less than you make is what's important.


Encouragement of credit card companies
Even the credit cards have encouraged you to spend money with no worries wherever you go, but the credit card companies have always sent the advertising to assaults you. Credit card companies often tell us that spend more earn more because of the rewards and privileges provided by them. These things are often hamper our ability to save our money.
Prevention:
Actually, spend more earn more doesn’t make sense because spend more sure lose more money that you have, right? Therefore, cut up your cards so that you are not tempted to use them. Save one card for emergencies. Lastly, remember to pay your credit card statement due on time.


Related links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/debt/debt_manage_2004/top-10-causes.asp
http://www.mozdex.com/prevent-credit-card-debt/
http://www.indiastudychannel.com/resources/53476-Credit-Card-Debt-Prevention.aspx

Electronic Currency

Electronic currency is the money which is exchanged through electronically only. It can exchange through computer networks or digital stored value system. It is also known as electronic money, digital money, or digital currency. The examples of electronic currency will be given are electronic fund transfer and direct deposit.

In 2nd June 2005, Firstgate’s Click & Buy was launched by Apple and accepted in European iTunes. It allows customer to purchase music, audiobooks, and gift certificates via debit card, invoice or bank transfer.

Besides that, peppercoin system provides service that can process small payment. It allows the merchants and financial services companies to grow revenue and profits through the sale of low-priced offerings. Peppercoin provides payment solutions for various market and transaction type. Thus, it can help merchants increase revenue and decrease costs at the same time. It also enables profitable small payments by growing both a merchants’ top line and bottom line.

Additionally, paystone technology provides a low price online payment method without the risk of charge back from the fraudulent credit card use. It can efficiently process the micropayments. Therefore, it provides a wider range of market for the businessman or individual. Paystone technology also provides an email money transfer option which allows paystone account holder sends fund to email of anyone globally.

Flooz.com was a company which established a currency unique to internet merchants. The word “flooz” is an Arabic word, means money. Individual can directly purchase from the flooz.com which can be redeemed for merchandise at a variety of online store. In August 26, 2001, this company announced its closure. It may be due to the limited adoption by both merchants and customers.

Related links:

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-132944345.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_currency
http://www2.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/abs/html/mags/co/2004/08/r8019.htm
http://gold-pages.net/Peppercoin.htm
http://gold-pages.net/Paystone.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flooz.com

Phishing: Examples and its prevention methods

Phishing is a form of fraud designed specifically to steal your identity. Usually, a phishing email will have a fake story that’s designed to lure you into clicking a link or button in the email or calling a phone number. The sender is trying to steal your identity by tricking you into revealing your password or other personal information.




Examples and Preventions:

1.You cannot think that an email is valid based on the sender’s email address. It’s pretty easy to alter and is not an indication of whether the email is real or not. Hence, just keep yourself up to date with the latest news and information on phishing in order to spot the fake and the differences.




2.Some phishing emails will ask about your account numbers and passwords. However, many companies or financial institutions have mentioned that they will never ask you for the personal information such as IDs, passwords and credit card numbers in any email. Thus, just remember to guard your privacy.




3.Sometimes, phishing emails will come with threats or warnings that your account is in danger of being deactivated if you don’t confirm your user information. Therefore, if you are in doubt then just call your customer service representative before you do anything foolhardy.




4.Many phishing emails have links that look valid, but send you to fraudulent sites instead. Therefore you better open a new browser window, then type the actual URL of the company or financial institution's website and log in to your account directly instead of clicking on those links provided by the email that typically ask for credit card and account numbers.


Useful tips:
Sometimes the easiest way to check is to enter a WRONG password. The fake site will accept it, and then you’re usually redirected to a page that says they’re having technical difficulties, so could you please log in back and check later?


Related links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing
http://images.google.com.my/images?hl=en&q=phishing+examples&gbv=2&aq=0&oq=Phishing+example

A review on a post of Internet Security from My E-commerce blog

Based on a review on the post “Favorite passwords used online”, it indicates that most of the online users always like to choose a password which is short and easy to remember. However, the password that they have chosen might not be secured. Sometimes, it can be easily stolen or used by unauthorized person without the users’ knowledge. Yet the users still tend to do so. The reason why they want to choose password which is short and easy to remember is because they want to avoid any unnecessary problems which will be faced to them. For example the problem is forgot the password. Whenever the online users forget the password, they are required to request with the related website to send the password again to their email address. Though, not all online companies will have such services. Thus, online user will prefer to create a new account.

Online users are advised to use more complicated passwords when creating their account. It is safer to create a password that is longer than 8 characters with unique symbols or capital letters in between the passwords. For example, a password of “longlong123” can be changed to “lonGloNg@123” so that it is not easy to be traced by hackers. Moreover, online users are recommended not to use same passwords on different accounts created. This is because whenever a lost of password happened, then the other accounts will be potentially lost too. Another way of better protection is to change password after some period of time. This can help to avoid the passwords being randomly tested by unauthorized users.

Although using or changing password is a way of safeguard, users shall aware of some disadvantages of these protections. For instance, frequently changes of passwords may lead the owner to forget their own passwords. At that time, complications can be happened and this is often not favored by any users. Moreover, users may mix up their passwords if they create too many “unique” passwords in different accounts. In some companies, random trying will result in block of account. Therefore, passwords owner must be aware of these limitations before creating excessive passwords.


Related link:
http://ecommerze.blogspot.com/search/label/Internet%20Security

How to safeguard our personal and financial data?

In today’s world, computer has been very important in our daily life. Almost everything surrounding us is computerized, and everyone around us is equipped with knowledge of information technology. Computer becomes necessarily important especially in working places. Works done by computer includes accounting, auditing, storing information of company, and sending information to related users. Due to the improvement in technology, computer crime becomes one of the ways for hackers to obtain unauthorized data without prior notice of the owner. Therefore, safeguarding our data in computer is the only way to prevent lost of data.

There are several ways to safeguard our data from unauthorized access by intruders. The most common ways that intruders use to steal data is to steal information in the sending process when we are trying to transfer our data to intended user. Therefore, encryption becomes one of the best ways to safeguard our data during the transferring process. When we send information through email, we can encrypt our email before sending to recipient, and the recipient will use decrypt software to read the information that we are trying to inform them. Encrypted email is done by transforming words to unreadable icons or shapes before sending, while decrypt software can help to scramble the icons back to the original words. By doing this, even the email is interrupt by intruders during the sending process, they will not be able to read the information.

Next, we can set up user names and passwords in our computers and office. These user names and passwords must not be accessible by anyone else, including close friends or colleagues. This is to prevent our data being unauthorized access by others when we are away from our keyboard. Besides that, we should set up different usernames and passwords in order to further protect our sensitive information. However, we must ensure that we must not forget our own usernames and passwords so that complications can be reduced to minimum. Changes in usernames and passwords after some period can also help to ensure that unauthorized users will not be able to access our information.



Besides that, we can also deploy firewall in our computer. The main purpose of firewall is to block unauthorized access while allowing authorized entry. It is a part of a computer system that can help to permit, deny, encrypt or decrypt access based on certain criteria. Firewall can help to block intruders from access into our computer through network, and they will require obtaining permission from us before accessing our personal and financial data.

Every computer users are fear of viruses. This is because viruses can be created by any virus writer to spread through network, computers or removable devices. Therefore, updated antivirus software shall be installed in every computer before the operating system is infected by any viruses. There is some free antivirus software available in the market, such as avast! antivirus and AVG scanner. Computer users also can purchase original antivirus software from retailers to obtain advanced protection against viruses, worms, and Trojans on disk, CDs, in email, and during browsing.



Last but not least, users of computer shall backup their data in different devices and locations especially important data. Whenever there is a lost of data, they will still have a backup copy to trace back the information. Users also advised not to store all data in one particular place so that they can minimize the effect of lost of data. Storing data in different devices also helps to diversify the risk of lost of data.

Related links:
http://www.aetna.com/members/safeguard_data.htm
http://www.ehow.com/how_2065985_safeguard-personal-information-work-computer.html?ref=fuel&utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=ssp&utm_campaign=yssp_art
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewall
http://www.consumersearch.com/antivirus-software/review

The threat of online security: How safe is our data?

Nowadays, people heavily relies on the internet by using computer. Increasingly developed technologies bring many benefits to people. However, there are some threats which will affect the safety of our data.

Firstly, computer crime is a criminal activity which occur in the network by using computer. Computer crimes have become high profile due to the high technologies that we are using now. It includes hacking, copyright infringement and so on. The data inside the computer or on the network is becoming unsafe since it can be unauthorized access or hacked by people. When the user's data is hacked, they can steal or destroy the data, and do illegal activity. It is very dangerous to user because the user's information is not protected and reliable.

Secondly, laptop is a portable computer device. It allows user can easily take to anywhere. Since it is capable of being carried or moved, it provides a chance to the laptop theft. Accodring to the FBI, losses due to the laptop theft more than $6.7 million dollars in year 2005. Another example will be given is the cases happened at Chicago. Two laptops had been stolen from the office of a public school. The laptops contain the information of teacher. The informaion might potentially been abused.

Thirdly, computer virus is also a harmful threats of data's safety. Virus is a program that can copy itself and infect a computer. Besides that, the virus can spread to another computer through internet, USB drive, hard disc and so on.

Addtionally, phishing is the criminally fraudulent process to obtain the private information of user via electronic communication. Normally phishing can be carried out through email or instant message. Furthermore, it will direct user to enter details at a fake website. The information could be misused by people and might bring the damage to the user. According to a research, it is estimated that 1.2 million computer users had suffered loss caused by phishing in United States between May 2004 and May 2005, totally approximately US$929 million.

In a nutshell, as the technologies are deveoping rapidly, it can help people in the daily life and also business world. Users must be clearly understood about the threats of online security and the effect of crucial damages caused by online security threats.


Related Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_virus
http://ecommerze.blogspot.com/search?q=stolen+laptop
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing