Just imagine, how nice if we could travel anywhere without the need to carry cash. Even without the need to carry a wallet. Simply bring your phone, we can do anything in any transaction. The good news, lifestyle, or often called a cash less society, is predicted to be booming next year.
Less cash society evolved thanks to the e-money. Bank of International Settlement (BIS) defines e-money as a product of 'stored value' or prepaid wherein a value of money (monetary value) stored electronically in an electronic equipment owned by someone.
In contrast to credit cards, debit and other payment cards, e-money transactions do not require the authorization process and is not associated with a bank account, because its value has been stored in the means to pay it.
E-money is generally used for small value transactions. There are two types of e-money is in the form of cards, which are usually issued by a bank, and the electronic form which are usually issued by a mobile operator.
Actually, e-money has been in Indonesia since 2007, but growth is relatively slow. Slowness was due to interoperability problems.
"Unfortunately there is interoperability, meaning that e-money can only be used for working with the merchant bank concerned," said one official BI, Aribowo.
Special e-money issued by the mobile operator, is also not convenient to use and relatively low reliability, because it uses SMS. Another obstacle is the recipient of merchants spread of e-money is also limited. As a relatively new product, e-money is also not known by the people.
But this year's predicted these obstacles will disappear. BI has committed to complete interoperability, so that one card can be used for all services provided by all operators.
NFC and the Future of e-Money
Mobile operators also began to breathe easier, because the use of e-money will be easier with the presence of NFC technology (Near Field Communication). Earlier this year HTC, Nokia and Samsung has been selling some type smartphone with NFC features, among them the Nexus and Nokia Lumia 900.
With NFC technology, e-money transactions can be done simply by putting a smartphone in the NFC Reader owned merchant. Increasing number of e-money managers are also likely encourage the acceleration of the merchant and public understanding.
In the year of launch the number of users of new e-money 165 193 with an average daily transactions of Rp 19.15 million and the volume of two thousand. In the September 2011 e-money users has reached 11.7 million with an average value of daily transaction volume of USD 2.5 billion and 102 thousand.
According Sharing Vision, e-money users in 2012 will reach 18 million in transactions of Rp 1.2 trillion. Of this amount was estimated at 20 percent of users will be actively trading, much of the previous year only 10 percent of active users.
In Europe, e-money has been growing since the 2000s. At first the number of transactions is only about 50 million with contributions ranging from 0.35 percent of all existing transactions. But then grew beyond the ordinary to about 380 million in 2006 with contributions reaching 1.23 percent of total transactions. Some countries are experiencing significant growth in e-money are Belgium, Austria, Germany and the Netherlands.
E-money service that has enjoyed the people of Indonesia are: Jak Card (Bank DKI Jakarta), Flazz (BCA), Gaz card Indomaret Card and E-Toll Card (Bank Mandiri), Studio Pass Card and Smart Card (Bank Mega), Jazz Java Card and my card (BNI), and BRIZZI (BRI).
While the e-money products issued by mobile operators are: T-cash (Telkomsel), Pomegranate and FlexiCash (Telkom), purse (Indosat), Cash XL (XL Axiata), and Skye Card (PT. Skye Sat Indonesia).
In many developed countries has widened the e-money needs of the community, although not as popular as credit and debit cards. Some e-money services that have been known to include: Visa Cash (Visa), MONDEX (MasterCard), Ukash (UK), eCash (Australia), SuperCash (Japan), Zoompass (Canada), Octopus Card (Hong Kong), MicroCash ( Thailand), M-Pesa (Kenya), Globe (Filipinos), Mobile Money (Malaysia) and CashCard (Singapore).
E-Money Banking vs. Operator
E-money issue for the banking system generally serves a specific transaction. Such as e-toll transactions only serves to toll booth, Studio Pass Card only works for Trans Studio entrance. However, the publishers generally seeks to develop the ability cards for a variety of other transactions.
While the issue of e-money mobile operators generally have more features. Pomegranate Telkom issue may be used to pay all your monthly bills such as home phone Telkom Group, Speedy, Flexi, Telkom Vision and Halo Card.
Pomegranate may also be used to buy credits Flexi, Sympathy, U.S. and other online games that work with Speedy. Pomegranate even been equipped with remittance features, namely the ability to transfer money to other people regardless of location with just a phone.
If users want to withdraw cash Pomegranate, Plasa Telkom could come to the nearest shops bearing the Pomegranate. Telkomsel T-cash issue could even be used for spending or cash withdrawal at all outlets Indomaret.
Global internet giant, Google has also issued e-money with the Google brand Wallet (GW). GW was launched in May 2011 and then in New York. This product is the result of cooperation of the leaders of each industry.
Ie Google as king of the internet, Citibank as the king of the banking, MasterCard credit cards as a king, as king of the First Data transaction security payments, and Sprint Nextel as one of the leading mobile operator in the United States. Collaboration of the five giants of this world would be strong evidence that e-money will become the trend of the world with tremendous business prospects.
GW can be used for online payment transactions on the internet or offline transactions in stores bearing the GW, simply by attaching a mobile Google Reader on the NFC. GW has three bags of money, namely Citibank, MasterCard and Google Prepaid Card. Thus, all customers of Citibank, MasterCard or Google Prepaid Card can be e-money transactions with GW worldwide.
Convenience offered by Google Wallet will likely soon spread to the entire world. While the issue of domestic e-money will also be favored when the interoperability of existing operator 11 can be completed this year.
Increasing number of smartphone with NFC features in this year also helped accelerate the penetration of e-money. The three main things that will encourage the expansion of merchant and public understanding. Thus the prediction of cash less society in 2013 is very rational.
If you are a trend setter or a netizen, do not forget to try the e-money as soon as possible, before the train left the next year.
