Thursday June 1, 2006
More payment option for e-shoppers
KUALA LUMPUR: Afraid of using your credit card online? Now there's a way to get past that. Online shoppers need not use their credit cards when making certain purchases at local online stores.
What they can do is register at www.mobile88.com and choose the option to shop at online stores linked to Mobile88. This enables them to pay for goods and services directly from their accounts at supported banks.
“The transaction costs for merchants will be lower than that of a credit card,” claimed Mobile88.com Sdn Bhd head of e-commerce Chong Lee Kean.
“It's another payment option for the consumer. You can use it to top up your mobile prepaid cards, buy flowers and other things. Shopping like this will also be safer, as the risk of credit card fraud is no longer there,” he said.
Chong said this at the signing ceremony between Mobile88 with Bank Islam Bhd for a Financial Process Exchange (FPX), a payment channel for online stores, that provides real-time online payment processing
It is operated by FPX Payment Gateway Sdn Bhd, which is a subsidiary company of Malaysian Electronic Payment System Sdn Bhd (MEPS).
Besides Bank Islam, the other local banks that are on the FPX are Bumiputra Commerce Bank (BCB), Public Bank and Hong Leong Bank.
Bank Islam consumer banking group general manager Datuk Wan Ismail Wan Yusoh said that with this exercise, it is preparing to cater for an increasing number of users and shoppers.
“The FPX is similar to an Automated Teller Machine (ATM). Every bank has its own proprietary system – the FPX gives it a unified platform. If, for instance, you only have a Maybank account and want to buy something from a merchant which only has a BCB account, it could be complicated. But FPX simplifies this,” said Mobile88 executive officer Chan Kok Long. — STEVEN PATRICK
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