E-Government in malaysia: Its implementation so far and citizen's adoption strategies

E-Government
The E-Government initiate 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 to delivers services to the people of Malaysia. E-Government seeks to improve the convenience, accessibility and quality of interactions with citizens and businesses. Simultaneously, it will improve information flow and processes within government to improve the speed and quality of policy development, coordination and enforcement. This would enable the government to be more responsible to the needs of its citizens.




Multimedia Super Corridor ( MSC )
As far as Malaysia is concerned, the implementation of E-Government was initiated with the introduction of the MSC in 1996. The implementation of E-Government in Malaysia heralds the beginning of a journey of reinventing the government by transforming the way it operate, modernizing and enhancing its services delivery.

E-government is one of the 7 flagship applications that introduced in MSC. The objective of these flagship application are to:
- jump start and accelerate the growth of MSC
- enhance national competitiveness
- creation of high value jobs and export
- help reduce digital divide
- make MSC a regional hub and test bed

Under the E-Government flagship, & main projects were identified to be the core of E-Government applications.
The E-Government projects are:
1- Electronic Procurement (eP)


2- Project monitoring System (PMS)



3- Electronic Service delivery (eServices)


4- Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)



5- Generic Office Enviroment (GOE)



6- E-Syariah and Electronic Labor Exchange (ELX)






Adoption Strategic


Several government has taken initiatives to introduced online services for public projects, aims to increase the case and efficiency of public service to people.
Among others were:
1) Public Service Protal (myGovernment)
2) e-Tanah
3) e-Consent
4) e-Filling
5) e-Local Government (e-PBT)
6) e-Kehakiman
7) Custom Information System (SMK)
8) Pensions Online Workflow Environment (POWER)
9) training Information System (e-SILA)




RELATED LINK :
1>
http://www.mait.com/admin/enews_images/MAIT%20Country%20Intelligence%20eNews96_37.pdf
2>
http://www.intanbk.intan.my/psimr/articles/Article1%20-%20Full.pdf
3>
http://www.archives.go.jp/news/pdf/MrShaidin2.pdf

Review A Local e-commerce Site

By looking at Malaysia's E-Commerce Habits, it is not difficult to guess that local eCommerce acceptance is being stimulated with the emergence of Air Asia. We only have one obvious local player with eBay-like auction model, other than eBay itself. Lelong has been around since 2000 and claims to have 1 million visitors per month.

What is Lelong.com.my? A means of identifying Lelong.com.my is to use an international comparison that everyone is familiar with. Styled and functioning similar to the international auction site, eBay.com, Lelong.com.my powers a robust and secure avenue for trading in Malaysia. The idea of an auction site in Malaysia has taken off with tremendous response. With a local flavour, members feel a sense of belonging and constantly keep in contact with the Lelong Development Team to give feedback, be it positive or negative.

Starting based on Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) transactions, Lelong.com.my is now moving to becoming a channel for Business-to-Consumer (B2C) relationships. Many distributors have realised the power of using the auction system and are now using the site to trade and grow their business.

Payments can be made through Maybank2u.com, interbank or other online transfer - 3 %( Imposed by bank), Cheque, or Bank-In Cash to lelong.com account.

To conclude, we can say that e-commerce has really help companies like lelong.com to boom in the cyber world and it has also become one of the most favourable way to start a business.

Things to take note to prevent e-auction fraud when a consumer participating in an e-auction

E-auction are being used by councils to secure batter contract terms and prices for goods and services they buy. E-auction allows councils to set up a scheduled event where companies can bid against each other to win the council's business.

Before bidding for a product, we should consider some aspects. Fraud might be conducted by customer or by sellers. Sometime consumers may send fake cheque or fake account details to the seller. But most of the fraud cases are conducted by sellers.




Tips to prevent e-auction fraud:
1- Become familiar with auction websites where we should look into the websites protection policies, never assume we are protected from auction fraud

2- Before placing a bid, learn as much as you can about the seller, but when u cant find anything about the seller, the avoid doing business with them. Never fall for promises of better deals by moving away from the original auction websites.

3- If the sellers want us to use an escrow service, we have never heard of, look into it. We have to check out the website, call up customer support.

4- Never ever give out our social security number, driving license number, credit card number, or bank account information until we have throughly checked out the seller and the escroe service.

5- If after the sale we feel the item or payment should have been delivered already, try to work it out with the seller or buyer. If at that point we feel that fraud is involved, immediately contact our state attorney general's office and the FTC at www.ftc.gov or call toll-free for help.


RELATED LINKS:
http://www.idea.gov.uk/idk/core/page.do?pageId=939784
http://www.crimcheck.com/background-check-news/whats-internet-auction-fraud-and-how-do-i-prevent-it

Corporate blogging: a new marketing communication tool for companies

What is corporate blogging?

A corporate weblog is published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals. There are two types of corporate blogging; they are Internal Blogs and External Blogs.

An internal blog, generally accessed through the corporation's Intranet, is a weblog that any employee can view and check for any latest updates from the company.

An external blog is a publicly available weblog where company employees, teams, or spokespersons share their views. It is often used to announce new products and services, to explain and clarify policies, or to react on public criticism on certain issues.

Example of corporate blog success.

According to research of NewPR Wiki, there was 58 (11.6%) of the Fortune 500 were blogging as of 17/5/2008. One of the successful blogs is Amazon Web Services Blog by Amazon.com that about Amazon web services, products, tools and developer information. It helps to improve the communication and its customer services, attract more people to consume and discuss new products online. Corporate blogging provides a clear mind map or editorial guidelines of overall marketing or communication strategy to its employees and third parties with organization communication plan and media mix. Besides that, it encourages employee participation in contribution of expertise, free discussion of issues or topics and deal with it, collective intelligence, be a direct communication between various layers of an organization and shares their views with others employees, teams or spokespersons publicly.

Advantages of corporate blogging
1. Easier communication between leaders and customers, suppliers and employees.
2. Build a stronger relationships and loyalty with customers.
3. Can share their ideas freely with an honest opinion.
4. Can build company’s reputation.

Disadvantages of corporate blogging
1. Hard to maintain because there is always new things to add on in the blog.
2. Time consuming to write a blog which may lead to high cost.
3. Public comment might affect the company reputation.

In conclusion, corporate blogging is getting important for corporation to deliver the message privately or publicly since it has brought many pros even thought the cons come along with it.

For the additional information, please refer those links:
1. http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/28/news/companies/pluggedin_fortune/index.htm
2. http://www.thenewpr.com/wiki/pmwiki.php/Resources/CEOBlogsList
3.http://mariosundar.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/the-5-types-of-corporate-blogs-with-examples/
4.http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2008/06/30/most-corporate-blogs-are-unimaginative-failures/

MOBILE PAYMENT SYSTEM IN MALAYSIA: IT’S POTENTIAL AND CONSUMERS’ ADOPTION STRATEGIES

What is mobile payment system?
Mobile payment is the collection of money from a consumer via a mobile device such as their mobile phone, Smartphone, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) or any electronic devices. Mobile payment can be used to purchase any number of digital goods and physical good liked ringtones, games, and even booking cinema ticket or air ticket. The mobile payments available in Malaysia are Telemoney and Mobile Money. There are four primary models for mobile payment which are:
a) Premim SMS based on transactional payments- payment through SMS text message
b) Direct Mobile Biling- uses mobile biling option to check at an e-commerce site
c) Mobile web payments (WAP)- uses web pages displayed to installed in mobile phone to make a payment
d) Near Field Communication- paying for purchases made in physical stores or transportation services.

MOBILE PAYMENT IN MALAYSIA

Telemoney
This is the first mobile payment service via multi channel access for internet and wireless transaction. GSM phone is used and identify the number then connect it to a credit card, debit card or bank account.

Mobile Money
This is a PIN- based mobile payment solution designed by MM International Sdn. Bhd. To address the limitation of cash, cheque and credit cards. User can registered anywhere by using a mobile phone.

POTENTIAL OF MOBILE PAYMENT SYSTEM

1) Improved user convenience
Mobile payment provides a more convenient way to pay for their bills, just by a few clicks on mobile device, the user may be able to make payment through their mobile. Instead of make payment by going to the particular place, as the mobile payment is operating 24 hours a day, the user can make payment at anytime, anywhere they want, they can even make payment either at home or their office. Thus, this can eliminates the hassle to queue up just to pay for the bills and therefore can save user’s time.

2) Security privacy and trust
Mobile payment ensures private and secure transmissions. By using mobile payment, the personal details and payment history of the user are protected. Moreover, users account is protected from hacker or terrorists because the users need to key in passwords in order to login to their account.

3) Simplicity
User does not need to go through sophisticated steps in order to make payment by their mobile device. They just have to activate their telephones by logging into websites. After registering their mobile telephone numbers, they can enjoy the services, after registering it, there just a few clicks and they are able to make payment through their mobile device.

CONSUMERS’ ADOPTION STRATEGIES
1.Educate consumers about mobile payments, how to use and introduce its functions (e.g. bill payment, mobile purchase)
2.Enchance security and confidence to mobile users
3.Collaborate with more banks and companies to widen the ability to pay via mobile at the same time it helps to increased customer’s satisfaction and confidence
4.Maintain customer’s loyalty

Electronic currency

Electronic currency
Electronic currency (also known as e-money, electronic cash, electronic money, digital money, digital cash or digital currency) refers to money or scrip which is exchanged only electronically. Typically, this involves use of computer networks, the internet and digital stored value systems. Electronic Funds Transfer(EFT) and direct deposit are examples of electronic money. Also, it is a collective term for financial cryptography and technologies enabling it.

While electronic money has been an interesting problem for cryptography, the use of digital cash has been relatively low-scale. One rare success has been Hong Kong's Octopus card system, which started as a transit payment system and has grown into a widely used electronic cash system. Singapore also has an electronic money implementation for its public transportation system (commuter trains, bus, etc), which is very similar to Hong Kong's Octopus card and based on the same type of card (FeliCa). There are also one implementation is in the Netherlands, known as Chipknip.

Paystone
Founded in 2001, Paystone has operations in the United States, Canada and the Philippines with International cash out capabilities in many other countries.

Paystone provides an inexpensive online payment method without the risk of chargebacks from fraudulent credit card use. Paystone can efficiently handle small financial transactions (micropayments) as low as $0.25. The ability to process micropayments opens a whole new world for entrepreneurs of all sizes. A small business or individual now has a method of generating revenue from their website quickly, easily and inexpensively. This makes a whole new range of content available to personal account holders. The large online merchant can also realize the full benefits of the Paystone solution to expand and increase the profitability of their business.

In addition to payments Paystone also provides an email money transfer option. A Paystone account holder can send funds to the email address of anyone in many countries around the world. The recipient of the funds signs up for Paystone and can cash out the money to their local bank account. For companies sending a large volume of payments they can access our GroupPay© feature to send many individuals money all at once

Bitpass
BitPass, the easiest and most complete way to buy and sell premium content online, works with leading media publishers, communities, portals and content providers to multiply their return on content assets while maximizing distribution and generating a better return on every customer.

For merchants looking to monetize content for distribution on the Web, BitPass offers both modular and end-to-end solutions to combat digital piracy, enable subscriptions and pay-per-view access, effectively merchandise and reward consumers, facilitate single-click payments, and simplify content operations.

For Consumers, BitPass created the universal buyer account, which synergies with the merchant offering and provides proprietary features that make it easy to search for, buy and organize premium content in a single place.

Payloadz
PayLoadz, Inc. is located in the heart of New York City's Grammercy District at 23rd and Park Avenue. This close proximity to the legendary Silicon Alley gives us access to an impressive pool of talent, resources, and also reminds us of the lessons learned during the dot-com fallout.

Payloanz are a new media development firm specializing in providing solutions for merchants and the community of developers. Founded in 1996 as a web development company Superfreaker Studios has grown to become one of the forefront developers utilizing Macromedia development products.

The solution that Payloanz created here has been developed with the years of experience and intimate knowledge and familiarity with the PayPal payment system. It is simple enough for anyone to use and works seamlessly with PayPal account to enable to offer digital goods available for sale from web site or online auctions.

The application of pre-paid cash card for consumers.

Why go through the hassle of taking out your money when you can use a much easier way to pay something? Introducing prepaid cash card. Nowadays people are always on the go and rushing towards work. A prepaid cash card with no information about the owner and carrying at least the following information: a unique card identification number in both visible (i.e., humanly readable) and encoded forms, and an encoded unique personal identification number (PIN) for the card owner. A printed receipt issued with the card displays the PIN in visible form. To initiate a transaction the user must give both the card identification number and the PIN.

What is the PrePaid Cash Card Process?

• Complete application
• Send to SBF with minimal startup fee
• Processor prepares card and sends to employee
• Employee gives routing, account number and deposit
• amount to employer
• The PrePaid Cash Card is loaded from future direct

deposit files

How can you use prepaid cash cards?

• Gift card – Send a cash card in their name
• Allowance Card - No Age Issues
• Travel & Budget Card - Manage Payments,
• Book Rooms and Car Rentals
• Commissions Card - Great for 1099 recipients
• Payroll Card
• Teen Card - Give teens purchasing power, no age issues

Credit Card debts: Causes and Prevention

what is credit card debt?
Nowadays, people like to apply credit cards because when go out we no need bring so much cash,we just show them the credit card and we can use it to pay for what we need to buy, very easy and convenient.
Credit card debt is an example of unsecured consumer debt, accessed through ISO 7810 plastic credit cards.Debt result when a client of a credit card company purchases an item or service through the card system.



causes:
How credit card debt is accumulated?
It's debt accumulated by the consumer that creates a risk for the credit card issuers as no collateral or assets are held against the borrowed funds. Debt accumulates whenever a card holder purchases a service or product through the card. As the consumer purchases more and more goods, the credit card continues to accumulate a debt balance until the credit limit has been reached. Credit limits vary among cards and individuals, as the limit (much like the interest rate) is directly associated with the card holder's credit history. If charges are built up on the card(s) that go over the credit limit. Over-limit charges add to credit card debt and may be subject to interest accrual. Debt increases via interest and penalties when a consumer does not pay their credit card bills on the specified billing cycle. When a payment billing cycle is missed by the card holder, a late payment fee will be incurred. The late fee can be anywhere from $10 to $50 and increases the debt load of the consumer. All missed payments are reported to the credit bureau for filing, affecting the card holder's credit score. If subsequent billing cycles pass and the payments continue to be delinquent, the card holder may be affected by universal default.

Prevention:

• Step1:

Use the calculator, figure out the expenses and incomes. Then list out the fixed expenses such as mortgage, car payment, house insurance, car insurance, etc... We have to figure out where the money is going, and how much is left.

• Step2:

Make a tighter budget for expenses. Cut down in areas where we can cut down.
For example, if we are eating out five times a week, make it two times. If we leave lights on in every room of the house, turn them off! Saving a bit here and a bit there, will add up to big numbers.

• Step3:

Figure out which credit card has the highest interest rate! Try to pay it off first. Add an extra $10 or $20 dollars to it a month to speed up the process if can.

• Step4:

If we could transfer part of the balance from the higher interest company to another, then make the transfer. Be sure to ask how much the fees for transferring will be, and negotiate with them. Sometimes, it is not worth it if the fees are high, and if we don't ask, they won't tell us! The fees will just appear on our statement, and will knock us socks off.

• Step5:

Keep only one credit card for emergency, and cut off the rest. We do not have to cancel all the accounts, just cut them, and put them away. Make sure our emergency usages are actually emergency! our commitment to eliminate debts depends on us.

• Step6:

Use cash for everything! If we do not have the fund for the purchase, then do not buy it.

• Step7:

We can get out of credit card debts with our commitment, determination, and stick to a tight budget. Cut out coupons, use coupons, shop smartly, buy only sale items, and decrease on our spending in any way that we can think of.

The Application of 3rd party certification Programme in Malaysia.

Nowadays, companies in Malaysia are using application of 3^rd party certification program. 3rd party certification program enables companies to do their business in a safe environment. Companies will not have to worry about minor stuff, hence be able to concentrate in their objectives.

An example of 3rd party certification program in Malaysia is MSC Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd. MSC Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd is a licensed Certification Authority (CA) operating within the Multimedia Super Corridor. MSC Trustgate was incorporated in 1999 to meet the growing need for secure open network communications and become the catalyst for the growth of e-commerce. Their services include SSL Certificate, Managed PKI, Personal ID, MyTRUST, MyKAD ID, SSL VPN, Managed Security Services, VeriSign Certified Training and Application Development. Besides that their vision is to provide a more secure entering into the new Internet economy.

Another example is VeriSign, Inc. It is the trusted provider of Internet infrastructure services for the networked world. Billions of times each day, our SSL, identity and authentication, and domain name service allow companies and consumers all over the world to engage in trusted communications and commerce. The products & services that they provide are SSLcertificates, identity and authentication services, domain name services, code signing, enterprise security services, internet defense network, content and messaging services, and communication services.

In conclusion, application of 3^rd party certification program is a must have for companies in the ever changing and dangerous cyber world we are in. Be sure that application of 3^rd party certification program will help companies and consumers to engage in trusted communications and commerce.

Related Links:

http://cdp.msc.com.my/guideform/MYISMS/CDPISMS_AppGuidebook_v1.4.pdf

http://www.msctrustgate.com/

http://www.verisign.com/