E-government in Malaysia: Its implementation so far and citizen’s adoption strategies

Generally, new technologies are forcing governments to be particularly considerate to time. In order to make right decision and avoid falling behind, governments must identify and resolve the different issues that have arisen from the transaction period during which traditional and e-government co-exist. Government should guide and control the transformation of government into e-government rather than just focusing on introduction of ICTs. Meanwhile, the use of ICT to strengthen the involvement of citizens and businesses in public decision must be progress at the same time.
The Electronic Government initiative in Malaysia was launched to lead the country into the Information Age. It has improved both how the government operates internally as well as how it delivers services to the people of Malaysia. It seeks to improve the convenience, accessibility and quality of interactions with citizens and businesses; simultaneously, it will improve information flows and processes within government to improve the speed and quality of policy development, coordination and enforcement.The vision of Electronic Government is avision for government, businesses and citizenry working together for the benefit of Malaysia and all of its citizens. The vision focuses on effectively and efficiently delivering services from the government tothe people of Malaysia, enabling the government to become more responsive to the needs of its citizens.

The 7 pilot projects of the ElectronicGovernment Flagship Application are as follows:

1. Project Monitoring System (SPP II)

2. Human Resource ManagementInformation System (HRMIS)

3. Generic Office Environment (GOE)

4. Electronic Procurement (EP)

5. Electronic Services (E-Services)

6. Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX)

7. E-Syariah

The my Government Portal (www.gov.my)acts as the one-stop source of Malaysian government information and services for the citizens.

The recent survey about the e-goverment adoption in Malaysia, which was done by the market information group TNS, indicated that the e-goverment use is growing but a slow pace.

The malaysians are also concerned about the security of doing transactions over the Internet and this resulted in low usage of e-goverment services.

As far as the age group is concerned, the younger Malaysian who are under 34, are the primary users of e-goverment services. in the survey also state that households with high income and higher levels of education actively use the e-goverment services.

E-goverment merging field, which is rapidly gaining attention and importance. Citizens expect and demand governmental services with a high degree of quality, quantity, and availability in a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week, and year-round fashion.

Governments are developing information systems and electronic services that have the capacity to meet these emerging service needs and demands of citizens and other clients. Success in delivering electronic services depends upon the capability and self-confidence of citizens in performing e-transactions, as well as their trust and confidence in the protection of their personal data within an open and accountable government.

The ease of use, compatibility, and trustworthiness are significant predictors of citizens's tention to use e-Services and that perceived reactive advantage, perceived image, perceived compatibility, perceived usefulness, and relative advantage are significant elements of e-goverment adoption.

Credit Card Debt : causes and prevention

Credit Card Debt is the unpaid balance on the credit card. This is not the minimum amount due, but is the total balance due on a respective line of credit. When the consumers has been late on a payment or does not pay the bank on time for that the money he or she has spent. Then, the bank will charge a late payment penalty and increases via interest on the amount of debt the consumer has.

Nowadays, credit card debts are major cause of bankruptcies each year. It is because many people have never realized of its consequences from financial and non financial perspectives when get a new credit card or not enough safety net when there is an incident happen.

The following is the main reason of the credit card debt:

POOR MONEY MANAGEMENT
A monthly spending plan is essential. But they does not know where their money is going, do not know what is the percentage of their income have they saved each and every month. Thus, it has lead to a rise in debts by using credit cards. Then, they cannot set aside money for saving and emergency needs.

GAMBLING
Today, gambling is fun and entertaining but it will be hard to stop when it becomes addictive. Thus, it will surely lead to a financial disaster if borrowing money through credit card for gambling.

UNEMPLOYMENT
People are forced to use credit card for expenses purposes to maintain current lifestyle. When the main breadwinner of the household has loss his job and could not find a new job during short periods. This may lead to a rise in debt when expenses are not cut down in line with the reduction in income.

EXCESSIVE MEDICAL EXPENSES
Credit card will probably become one of the sources of funds to pay off the medical expenses if health insurance is not adequate to cover the medical bills if one of your family members suffers serious illness.

The following is the ways to prevent credit card debt:

BUDGET
List all monthly bills and necessities and make sure that you can meet all the basic necessities that you spent and stay within your budget guidelines. this will prevent from overspending and fall under deeper debt load.

SELF CONTROL AND DISCIPLINE
One of the best practices is to have a direct set up so that able to pay back the full amount each month and use in emergencies. Thus, self control and discipline to keep these cards in wallet and would not overspend. The

CAUTION ABOUT AGREEMENT
make sure you have read word by word in all the agreements before u signed and make a payment. Sometimes, there could be hidden some fees that we does not need to pay.

Review a local e-commerce site

Lelong Malaysia is a website that provides easy malaysian auction and online shopping which includes trading of computers, cars, houses, electronics, sports, antique, software and handphone. The website also offers online payment transaction.

The website is unique because the auctioned items are rare and awesome such as these weird stuff and spy camera detector pen, which allows users to detect any spy devices around on a certain location.
The website also auctions popular products from other website including MaxAudio Online, which is a premier Car Audio, Video, Accessories & Performance Online Store.
Lelong offers each merchant member a page where they can sell their products such as Shinoz's Online Store which is powered by Lelong.
The Lelong Forum allows members to interact with each other and ask questions. Other members could provide a answers and recommendations about issues related to Lelong and transportation of bought materials which have problems with the courier service.
Members at Webmaster Malaysia Forum even featured the lelong's service. The free auction, free membership, free bidding, free banner advertisement and free trading. Sylok.com's Forum also featured Lelong's Bank Auctioning and Photomalaysia Community.
As more and more small and medium business "go online" using e-commerce website such as lelong. People have provided guides such as Lelong Malaysia Auction Online Guide that are listed on lelongmalaysia.com.
The popularity of the site caused the growth of other websites such as Malaysia Auction Lelong Property (real estate), Cari Rumah Sewa, Malaysia Auction Online and Iklan Malaysia.

mobile payment system in malaysia its potentials and consumers adoption strategies

A mobile payment or m-payment may be defined, for our purposes, as any payment where a mobile device is used to initiate, authorize and confirm an exchange of financial value in return for goods and services. Mobile devices may include mobile phones, PDAs, wireless tablets and any other device that connect to mobile telecommunication network and make it possible for payments to be made. The realization of mobile payments will make possible new and unforeseen ways of convenience and commerce. Unsuspected technological innovations are possible. Music, video on demand, location based services identifiable through mobile handheld devices – procurement of travel, hospitality, entertainment and other uses are possible when mobile payments become feasible and ubiquitous. Mobile payments can become a complement to cash, cheques, credit cards and debit cards. It can also be used for payment of bills (especially utilities and insurance premiums) with access to account-based payment instruments such as electronic funds transfer, Internet banking payments, direct debit and electronic bill presentment.

A mobile payment service in order to become acceptable in the market as a mode of payment the following conditions have to be met :

a) Simplicity and Usability: The m-payment application must be user friendly with little or no learning curve to the customer. The customer must also be able to personalize the application to suit his or her convenience.

b) Universality: M-payments service must provide for transactions between one customer to another customer (C2C), or from a business to a customer (B2C) or between businesses (B2B). The coverage should include domestic, regional and global environments. Payments must be possible in terms of both low value micro-payments and high value macro-payments.

c) Interoperability: Development should be based on standards and open technologies that allow one implemented system to interact with other systems.

d) Security, Privacy and Trust: A customer must be able to trust a mobile payment application provider that his or her credit or debit card information may not be misused. Secondly, when these transactions become recorded customer privacy should not be lost in the sense that the credit histories and spending patterns of the customer should not be openly available for public scrutiny. Mobile payments have to be as anonymous as cash transactions. Third, the system should be foolproof, resistant to attacks from hackers and terrorists. This may be provided using public key infrastructure security, biometrics and passwords integrated into the mobile payment solution architectures.

e) Cost: The m-payments should not be costlier than existing payment mechanisms to the extent possible. A m-payment solution should compete with other modes of payment in terms of cost and convenience.

f) Speed: The speed at which m-payments are executed must be acceptable to customers and merchants.

g) Cross border payments: To become widely accepted the m-payment application must be available globally, word-wide.

The Malaysian Electronic Payment System, commonly known as MEPS, is the only interbank network service provider in Malaysia.

Malaysian Electronic Payment System (1997) Sdn Bhd is a payment consortium owned equally by 12 local banks. Its subsidiary companies are MEPS Currency Management Sdn Bhd (MCM) and FPX Gateway Sdn Bhd (FPX).
MEPS plays a role in the implementation of smart card for Automated Teller Machine (ATM) card, which is an upgrade to chip-based card from previous magnetic-stripe card issued to all banks customer.

The card is also known as Bankcard, a card with multiple functions. There are three main functions that can be used namely ATM (with various combinations of banking transactions), e-Debit (online purchase payment) transactions at participating merchants and MEPS Cash (load in a monetary value into your Bankcard chip) and pay of participating merchants.

MEPS provides the following services in its network to all participating banks:

1.Shared Nationwide ATM Network, provides the switch which enable bank customers to conveniently access their funds anywhere from any of the participating banks’ ATMs.

2.Shared Regional ATM Network, a cross-border ATM link with Indonesia (ArtaJasa, Rintis), Singapore (NETS), Thailand (ITMX) and China (CUP) that offers participating banks’ customers the convenience of making cash withdrawals via ATM in the said countries and vice versa.

3.e-Debit, enables the purchase amount to be immediately deducted from the savings or current account direct into the retailer's or merchant's bank account. This provides consumers with better cash management and peace of mind as all transactions are PIN based. In addition, the new card is embedded with a sophisticated, tamper-resistant smart chip to protect consumers against the risk of fraud.

4.Mobile Prepaid Top-Up via ATM, offers more convenience for mobile phone subscribers to top-up through MEPS’ ATMs.

5.Interbank ATM Fund Transfer (IBFT), allows bank customers to transfer funds from one account to another account in another bank. The beneficiary will receive the funds immediately and instantaneously, as the transfer is online and in real-time.

6.Interbank GIRO (IBG), makes interbank funds transfer more convenient to bank customers via an electronic channel. It enables payments to be made without the need to raise physical supporting vouchers or documents such as cheques, bank drafts, etc. It is an interbank fund transfer system that facilitates payments and collections via the exchange of digitized transactions between banks. For corporations, it is ideal for high volume interbank payments up to a maximum of RM100,000 per transaction such as payroll and dividend/warrant payments. As for individuals, it is ideal for transactions such as credit card payments and loan repayments. It offers bank customers, be an individual or corporation, a secure interbank fund transfer system/channel for all sorts of payments through direct debiting of the customers' account(s) and crediting into the beneficiaries account; with any IBG participating banks.

7.Financial Processing Exchange (FPX), opens new doors for e-Commerce, in particular business to business (B2B) and business to commerce (B2C) payments. FPX is an alternative payment channel for customers to make payment at e-market places such as websites and online stores as well as for corporations to collect bulk payment from their customers. It leverages on the Internet banking services of participating banks and provides fast, secure, reliable, real-time online payment processing. FPX provides complete end-to-end business transactions, resourceful payment records, simplified reconciliation and reduced risks as fund movements are between established financial institutions.