Credit Card Debt: Cause and Prevention

Nowadays, credit cards became very common to everyone already. I believe that every family at least got one member holding a credit card. Credit card brings a lot of convenient to everyone but do you all know credit card also bring many disadvantages to us? Credit card can lead us to bear with a huge debt if we didn’t well manage in using credit card. Lets me show you all what actually cause credit cards debt and some way to prevent bear with huge credit card debt.



Here we go……

The cause of credit card debts

1) Poor Money Management
Poor money management is one of the reason to accumulate a lots of credit card debts. Many family or card holder do not have a monthly spending plan and also didn’t keep track of the monthly bills makes them unaware where the money going. Besides that, they might be spending towards a lot of unnecessary things using credit cards and this force to pay interest on these purchases every month. When the bills come they only get shock and realize there is a huge debts there. It is too late.

2) Underemployment
Underemployment meaning not getting enough working hours at jobs. Many people, their salary just can afford to live in a basic life style but they not satisfied. What they will do? They will use tomorrow money, which means using credit card to buy all luxury things to fulfill their desires. After couple of times, they will found difficulties to pay back the amount.

3) Interest
Many cardholders never fully repaying the entire sum of the debt, they will only like to pay the interest and the minimum amount of principal when the debt is due. Debt accumulates and increases via interest and a penalty when the consumer does not pay all the debts before due.


Here some tips to prevent credit card debts…

Preventions of credit card debts

1.) Keep Good Management of Your Finances
The 1st thing to prevent getting suffered with credit card debts, a well-planned financial management scheme can’t be missing up. This will help you become a more prepared and more organized consumer. With a great management plan, you won’t even choose to pull out your credit card from your wallet. Avoid purchasing all unnecessary things and review the bill statement every month.


2.) Choose the Right Card for You
This is one of the most important initial steps regarding your credit card use. Choosing the exact card serves you the entire well. In additions, choose the card that with no annual fees and low interest rate. Choose the card that easy to make payment so that you will not lazy to make payment until accumulate a huge debt.

3.) Always Pay on Time
Paying on time is one of the best solutions to shun away from debt. People who can control their finances and manage their card payment schedules are the ones who rarely acquire credit card debt. Clear all the debt on time, do not wait until the due date and get charged by penalty.

Be a smarter credit card holder….

Electronic Currency

Electronic currency is also known as e-money, electronic cash, digital money, digital cash or digital currency which refers to money or scrip that is exchanged only electronically.

Technically electronic or digital currency is a representation, or a system of debits and credits, used to exchange value, within another system, or itself as a stand alone system, online or offline. Also sometimes the term electronic money is used to refer to the provider itself. Electronic currency allows its holder to buy the goods and services that the vastness of the internet offers.

Electronic currency involves the use of computer networks, internet and digital stored value systems. It may only exist in the cyber world, but that is nothing new about it. The examples of electronic currency are Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) and direct deposit. EFT refers to the computer-based systems used to perform financial transactions electronically while direct deposit is a banking term used to refer to certain systems used to transfer money.

Electronic currency trading can let you to do business and earn only few dollars of investment. In fact, some of the experts will suggest the beginners to start with only a few dollars so that they can first learn the ropes of electronic currency. Besides that, electronic currency trading has a low transaction cost. Unlike other businesses that will eat up your profit with a huge amount of fees, it allows you to do business with minimal fees and give you more profit and money. There are few websites examples that can let people to do e-currency trading such as MG E-currency, JT GOLD.com.

In conclusion, Electronic currency brings lots of conveniences to the user because it only involves the use of computer networks and internet only for those transactions. Not only in term of convenience but also efficiency and effective because it can easily be used in certain system to transfer money. Besides electronic currency trading has a low transaction cost too and everyone can use this system.

Mobile Payment Systems in Malaysia: Its Potentials and Consumers' Adoption Strategies

Mobile payment systems can be used for purchasing musics, ringtones, wallpaper and games (there are many of these type of service or product offered in Malaysia’s newspaper). Most Malaysian buy these ringtones and games via mobile payment, either via GPRS/WAP or SMS (premium SMS based transactional payments).

There are few types of mobile transaction can be made:

• Premium SMS transaction
• WAP (mobile web)
• Mobile wallet

Premium SMS Billing service lets you take advantage of the growing trend in mobile billing, quickly generating revenue by selling a range of content and mobile services to consumers. PSMS offers many benefits as a mobile billing mechanism:

• Convenience, anonymity, and perceived risk reduction, making it an attractive option to consumers
• A perfect mechanism for consumers, simplifying one-off purchasing and ordering short-term or bulk subscription-based mobile services
• Fast revenue generation, resulting in the availability of funds to reinvest in your business
• Access to consumers who do not maintain credit cards

As the world's largest mobile transaction network, sometimes referred to as a mobile aggregator or SMS aggregator, mBlox manages more than USD $500 million in Premium SMS Billed transactions every year in 15 countries on behalf of businesses

WAP is a simplified version of HTTP optimized to wireless environment. The idea is to use existing Internet and other network capabilities and to fit the content into low bandwidth network. WAP enabled phone connects into WAP gateway, which then does interacting with Internet servers or other services using more powerful protocols.

Mobile wallet is a tool in mobile phone to save sensible information like credit card numbers and passwords. Without a safe storage Bluetooth or IrDA could not realize a mobile payment. Unlike remote method like WAP, SMS or Java MIDP, all the local payments method use either wallet technology or secure SIM cards to store data.

The strategies made my mobile wallet system is as follow:

• Educate consumers about mobile payments, how to use and introduce its functions (e.g. bill payment, mobile purchase)
• Enchance security and confidence to mobile users
• 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
• Maintain customer’s loyalty

How to Safeguard Our Personal and Financial Data？

Most of the people will use computers and internet to run their daily activities such as business, internet surfing, internet searching, blogging and so on. However, people may lost out of their information or hacking by hackers during they used the internet. Thus, today we will explain few ways that can safeguard our personal information and financial data from being lost.

Password protect
Usernames and passwords are used to ensure security. Longer passwords provide greater security than shorter ones. Once you select a password, change it frequently. Do not disclose it to anyone.

Install a firewall
Firewall is a software program designed to allow good people in and keep bad people out. Most new computers come with firewalls integrated into their operating systems. If you have an older computer or using dial-up, you may need to buy a firewall separately and install it yourself.
Using biometric device
Biometric devices grant access to programs, computers, or rooms using computer analysis of some biometric identifier. Biometric devices are gaining popularity as a security precaution because they are a virtually foolproof method of identification and authentication.

Install and update antispyware and antivirus programs
Install an antivirus program such as Symantec and Norton antivirus, AVG antivirus or other more in order to protect yourself against viruses and Trojan horses that may steal or modify the data on your own computer . In order for the well protection, you must must sure to keep your virus definitions up to date.

Using encryption techniques
To protect information on the Internet and networks, individuals may use a variety of encrytion techniques to keep data secure and private. Encryption is a process of converting readable data into unreadable characters to prevent unauthorized access.

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

Nowadays, the technology at internet is continue grow rapidly, so that everyone also can easily to access to the internet. Many people rely on computers to create, store and manage critical information. Most of the companies already used the internet to do their business transaction or sharing the important information. However, the increasingly developed technologies sarcastically increase the risk every computer user faced. Consequently, it is important for users to aware that computer security plays a major role in protecting their data from loss, damage, and misuse. Security has three main concepts: confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Confidentiality allows only authorized parties to read protected information. Integrity ensures data remains as is from the sender to the receiver. Availability ensures you have access and are authorized to resources.


The followings are some of the potential security threats that can be found.

Computer Virus

is the most common of threat is in form of malicious code which is computer virus. It’s a program or a fragment of code that replicates by attaching copies of itself to other programs. There are few main classes of viruses which are file infectors, system or boot-record infectors, macro viruses and multi-part viruses. This type of virus is designed to steal information from your computer without your knowledge.

Online Fraud

is a broad term covering internet transactions that involve falsified information. Some of the most common forms of online fraud are the sale via internet of counterfeit documents, such as fake IDs, diplomas and recommendation letters sold as credential: offers easy money such as work at-home offers that claim to earn individual thousands of dollars got trivial tasks; prank calls, in which dial-up connection lead to expensive long distance charges; and charity facades, where donation are solicited for phony cause.


Accidental Action

Accidental actions contribute to a large number of computer security risks. This category encompasses problems arising from basic lack of knowledge about online security concepts and includes issues suck as poor password choices, accidental or erroneous business transaction, accidental disclosure, and erroneous or outdated software. Related problems occur as a result of misconfigured security products and information leakage resulting from insecure information transfers. Education and prudence should be considered key defenses in limiting the frequency and extent of such events, since this from of cyber vulnerability is largely self-inflicted and avoidable.

In conclusion, risk exposed by computer users is increasing with the increasing developed technology. Therefore, safeguards developed must be always up to date to enhance the defenses against online security threats. In the same time, users must be educated and informed about the crucial damages and loss caused by imposing online security threats.

Revenue Model for Google.com, Amazon.com, e-Bay.com

Revenue model describes as using different kinds of technique in generating from the publisher’s websites. Revenue model can be divides into 5 different kinds of techniques, there are:

Sales: Its include sales of goods, services and also merchandise information that provide in the publisher’s website.

Transaction fees: Company will earn commission from every transaction that have been made or based on the volume of transactions that conduct in the website.

Advertising fees: Publishers would allocate advertisements spaces in their website to let other company to place their advertisement and receive the fees from that company.

Subscription fees: This would charge to the customers who would like to subscribe to contents or services that provided by the website on a monthly or yearly basis.

Affiliate fees: Commissions will be received by company for referring customers to others web sites. It includes CPM (cost per thousand impressions), CPC (cost per click) or CPA (cost per acquisition/action).

Next, we would like to introduce the revenue model of the 3 popular websites which provide e-commerce services. There are Google.Com, Amazon.Com, and eBay.com.

Google’s Revenue Model
The main income of Google.com is generated by the advertising revenue model. Google advertising revenue model includes Google AdWords, Google AdSense and Froogle.Google AdWords is a pay per click advertising program of Google designed to allow the advertisers to present advertisement to people are looking for information related to what the advertiser has to offer. When a user searches Google search engine, ads for relevant words would shown on the screen. Google generate most of the revenue from Google AdWords.
Google AdSense is an ad serving program. Website owners can enroll in this program to enable text, image and, video advertisements on their sites. Mostly the revenue is generated on a per-click or per-thousand-ads-displayed basis and the ads administered by Google.
Froogle is a price engine website launched by Google Inc. It is a service from Google that makes it easy to find information about products for sale online. Advertising space is available for purchases to be displayed in Froogle in the form of an AdWords ad.Currently, Google is testing a new advertising program that pays site owners based on a Cost-Per-Click model, called Cost-Per-Action. It was revealed via an invitation e-mail from Google AdSense team to Web site owners.

Amazon.com Revenue Model
Another e-market web site is Amazon.com which was one of the first major companies to sell goods through the Internet. Amazon generates revenue primarily on selling books, videos, electronics, and kitchen equipment on domestic and international Web sites.
Product Ads is an advertising program that puts products in front of millions of Amazon.com customers. Seller can simply upload their product catalog and set the cost-per-click bids and daily budget. Amazon will then display the ads in highly targeted placements throughout the Amazon.com site. When customers are interested in buying such product, they click through to the website and purchase the product directly from the company.Amazon Marketplace is Amazon.com’s fixed price online marketplace that allows sellers to offer their goods alongside Amazon’s offerings. Buyers can buy items which sold directly by third party through Amazon.com Marketplace. Amazon.com would charges on a commission rate based on the selling price of products or services, transaction fees, and also variable closing fees which this sales strategy and program has give profitable income for Amazon.com.
Besides, Amazon.com also generates their revenue by using Affiliate revenue model. AStore is Amazon.com affiliated product which website owners can use to create an online store on their site. The store does not allow website owners to sell their own products directly to customers. Website owners pick products from Amazon’s store and earn referral fees on the products purchased by their readers. The fee structure is currently the same as for the other affiliate links.

Ebay Revenue Model
Ebay is an online auction and shopping website in which people buy and sell goods and services worldwide. Millions of items bought and sold daily through this website and EBay normally generates revenue from a number of fees which are insertion fees, promotional fees, and final value fees.Insertion fees will be charged when an item listed on Ebay.com and this fee is nonrefundable. However promotional fees is the fees that charged for additional listing options that help to attract attention for the item. While final value fees is the commission that charged to the seller at the end of the auction.

Example of an E-Commerce Failure and Its Causes

An example of ecommerce failure is Nike shoe company. Nike's move to switch to flash for its e-commerce site is a break from traditional methods, with most companies relying on the more straightforward HTML, AdWeek writes. R/GA explained that by switching to flash, Nike is able to improve both user experience and the purchase process by adding a persistent shopping cart, which wouldn't be possible with standard html.

The Flash-based NikeStore.com will replace the seven-year-old NikeTown.com and will carry the same 30,000 pieces of apparel and footwear items as its predecessor.

Forrester Research analyst Peter Kim pointed to increased adoption of broadband and 97 percent consumer penetration rate of Flash in rationalizing the move. "If you tried to do this back in 2000, you'd be dead in the water," he noted to AdWeek. However, in recent years, failing to handle the orders flushed into its website, the company totally lost track of thousands of orders or failed to deliver them on time. The federal commission fined Nike $350000.

The causes of the e-commerce failure-I think part of the problem is when the big company jump into the e-commerce system, they forget some common factors that will affect their company during the holidays. Shipping product takes man power and during the holiday season, it tends to slow the process down simply by the sheer volume of orders of the mail service industry receives in that short period of time. Frankly, not all the companies have the capitol to invest in such a large expansion, if they are going into the e-commerce industry, they can't afford not to put in that investment.

Another failure causes is delivery the stock to customer is not on time. As we should know that, getting customer to the site is one thing, while delivering is another thing. Bricks and mortar retailers have no such problems. Failure to deliver the ordered stock on time to customers and displeased the consumer