Tag Archives: e-wallet

Mobile, News

Celcom MEGA Postpaid Plan – Freedom to Choose

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Using your mobile phone these days means that you are constantly connected. Services like Whatsapp, Telegram, e-mail, and all the known social media apps require you to use data even in the background, even when your device is turned off. In that case, there is always the problem of choosing between two types of plans that fit you the best.

You might need huge amount of data. There could be a number of reasons; you rely solely on your smartphone for data and internet, your work requires you to travel around plenty and therefore you rely plenty on your data plan for internet. You are most likely going for data plans that will give you unlimited data but at a capped speed.

Then there are those that need the speed. You might already have a fixed internet plan that you use at home. You want high speed data in occasions. To that, you have to trade off on quota. This is what Celcom calls the Lightning Internet Speed, you get full 4G LTE+ speeds all the time but you can only have them to a limited amount.

With a single MEGA plan, you can simply choose what you want for what you need. For as little as MYR 80 every month you are going to get up to 30GB of high speed data. With that also you get unlimited phone calls to any network. Pretty good?

For an additional MYR 18/month you can choose between an additional 10GB of data or unlimited M pass. That is unlimited data at capped speeds (5Mbps). If you need high-speed internet (Unlimited L up to 15Mbps), you can opt to spend a little bit more at an additional MYR 69/month. (Hotspot limited to 5GB and 10GB respectively every month)

For Lightning Mobile Internet Speed you start from MYR 80/month at 30GB cap, as per mentioned earlier. For an additional MYR 18 you can get MEGA M for an additional 10GB in your plan. For an additional MYR 68/month you get an additional 30GB of data. If you are that hungry for data, pay an extra MYR 108/month for MEGA XL plan and get up to 100GB of data every month (additional 70GB).

For the MEGA M, MEGA L, MEGA XL plans, there is a few additional features that you might like as well. If you have unused data in that month, you can trade-in your data for cashbacks. For now (two months promotion period), you get MYR 5 for 10GB of data you trade in credited to your Boost e-wallet. Nothing more, nothing less though.

Source: Celcom

When you travel to one of the listed 12 countries, you get to use your own data plan as well, or whatever that is left in it within your plan, instead of getting an additional data plan just for roaming. You have to pay MYR 38/day though to use your data. If you are on the MYR 188/month (MYR 80 + MYR 108 MEGA XL) plan though, its free. Data is precious? Pay a little extra for Celcom’s Ultra Hour Passes. You can even add on Celcom’s Unlimited Social Media plan.

The best part about the Celcom MEGA plan is its flexibility. As long as you are not getting a device with your MEGA plan, you can pick and choose the plans every month. You can choose between the five plans and change every month depending on your needs. You get to add up to 3 sub lines or Family lines if you want. For each additional line you pay MYR 40 for 15GB of data each line. For an additional MYR 5/month you can share your MEGA M, MEGA L, MEGA XL data pool with your family members.

Of course, like any other postpaid plan you can choose to buy devices from Celcom with the plan as well. If you pick up Celcom’s MEGA XL plan at MYR 188/month you can choose to get a smartphone for free from Celcom’s pool of premium devices. Users who are on Celcom First plan can opt into the MEGA Plan via Celcom’s BlueCube centers or a simple phone call. Subscribers of MEGA plans can change their monthly plans simply via logging into Celcom’s Android or iOS Celcom Life app and a few clicks. More info can be found on their website.

Mobile, News

Touch n’ Go RFID Now Available for MYR 35 Nationwide!

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18 months ago, Touch n’ Go Sdn. Bhd. started something quite radical for the transportation industry in Malaysia. It is not what you would call unthinkable or unheard of. It has been done before, albeit outside of Malaysia. The new application within Malaysian road have been also widely know to be used in plenty of applications with unmatched reliability and accuracy; baggage sorting and handling in the airports for example.  

If you were thinking of RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification); yes we are talking about RFID. The title should have given it away anyway. Touch n’ Go Sdn. Bhd., in collaboration with Touch n’ Go Digital, launched the RFID pilot program. According to Touch n’ Go, the program gave out about million RFID tags to residents of Klang Valley. The program also extends its acceptance across Klang Valley’s 22 highways through its 18 months Pilot program. Late last year, extending into this year, the RFID acceptance extends to selected toll gates across the North-South Expressway.  

In short, the program was a successful one. That is the test covered; so what is next? A full rollout of course.  

That also means that RFID tags are now available for purchase via installation centres across the nation. You no longer have to make extensive applications through the website and wait for approval from Touch n’ Go to install the RFID tags to your cars, for a price. Not expensive though at MYR 35. Compare that to a new Smart TAG device at MYR 150 each. To use the devices you also have to get a new Touch n’ Go card for MYR 10.  

The RFID tag works with an eWallet – the Touch n’ Go eWallet. You do not need a Touch n’ Go card anymore with the RFID tags. Well, you might still want to keep one as a back up; just in case. All you have to do is to ensure you have enough credits in the Touch n’ Go eWallet, pass through an RFID lane, and you’re through. Keep a good distance with the car in front of you though, and a reasonable speed (30 km/h) and below.  

Of course RFID will not just stop at the 22 toll gates in Klang Valley. They are rolling out to even more toll gates across the nation through 2020 and beyond. Touch n’ Go is also looking to use RFID beyond the public roads. They are looking at installing it and using it for parking, paying for petrol, and more. 

RFID is more than just what you see on the surface though. Touch n’ Go Sdn. Bhd. can now do real-time traffic analysis and tracking. These data can be shared across multiple platforms or even the authorities for traffic planning and tracking. It is all a part of a smarter and more digital Malaysia. 

Touch n’ Go’s RFID tags will be available for purchase at MYR 35/tag from 15th February onward. You do have to ensure that you have the Touch n’ Go eWallet app on your smartphones first though; the RFID tags are tied  to your eWallet. From the 15th February 2020 to 15 April 2020 40 lucky winners will walk away with MYR 2,500 worth of Toll Pass credited in their eWallet.  

The Touch n’ Go eWallet app is available for free on Android and iOS via Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store respectively. For more information on the Touch n’ Go RFID program you can head over to their website. 

Mobile, News

Skip the Queue at PETRONAS, Setel on Your Smartphone!

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Any drivers knows the pain of driving. Traffic jam? No, not really. There is one very big inconvenience whenever you take out your car.  

Put it this way; your car needs energy to run. For electric cars, you need a battery pack to store energy for the car. While you can do that at home, you need to get your car plugged in still. It will take forever to charge too. 

While electric cars may not be too clever of an investment in Malaysia at this time, the traditional internal combustion engines with traditional fossil fuels are the way to go. The inconvenience is that you have to keep your tank topped up when it runs out, a 5 minute ordeal at times.  

Most of the time though its just 5 minutes that you spend in the fueling station. You tend to spend more than 15 minutes in the fueling station. At times you have to wait for a pump to free up when there is too many people at the station. Once that’s done, you have to queue up to pay for your fuel at the kiosk. To skip that, you can use your debit/credit card at the pump. If you use a debit card though, the vendor first takes MYR200 from your account before you even start doing anything.  

What if there is a better solution. Since every other person in Malaysia has been going on and on about eWallet, why not use these apps to pay for fuel, from inside the car; ‘Setel’ it there and then.  

Welcome to the world of Setel, an eWallet app that is specialised in handling all your fuelling needs. With Setel, it really is just 5 minutes in the fuelling station, not 15 minutes.  

The moment you get to the fueling station, all you need to do is to pull up to an available pump, whip out the smartphone, open Setel app, choose the pump you are at, enter the amount that you would like to fuel, and voila, your pump is ready. Of course you need to make sure you still have credits in the app wallet. For that, you can use your credit/debit card with no fuss. If you need to find a petrol station near you, the app will help you find it too. 

While the app has existed for about a year now, the app was only readily useable in the Klang Valley region and was in Beta mode. Now though, the app is fully launched as a full running app. The app will not just stop at the pumps though. They are working closely with PETRONA Malaysia to release more features within their petrol pumping stations like purchasing items in PETRONAS Mesra shops or partnering vendors, with collection at the station.  

Speaking of Mesra, you can connect you Mesra card to the app and collect points automatically as you use the app. While in Beta you could not redeem the points in your Mesra card through the app now though, you can. The Setel app is the one stop shop for all fueling needs in PETRONAS.

The Setel app is now available for free on Google’s Play Store for Android and Apple App Store of iOS devices. You can use Setel app in over 700 PETRONAS fuelling stations across the nation. For now, there is no other vendors that accepts payment via the Setel app. There is also currently an MYR 200 cap within the app. No matter though, you can now tell your friends that you are actually ‘setel-ing’ some business as your late excuse. More information on the Setel app on their website.  

Business, Mobile, News

DuitNow QR: The Way Forward Paved First by Cyberview and PayNet

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If you walk into your favourite cafés or even restaurants, you might be bombarded with small table standees with a QR code on the payment counter. That is to indicate that the restaurant has gone cashless and is accepting cashless payment options. Having multiple options to pay for your purchases is always great, but problematic since every single cashless payment vendor produces their own unique QR code for each of the participating shops.

You end up with multiple apps on a single device. To keep track of the payments, you must access different apps. That, or you get a specialised device that has access to several apps at the same time. Still, it is not perfect. You still need multiple apps to get it to work, if you choose to omit certain apps, you cannot even allow users to use those apps. In the end, it is all rubbish and using cash is still the best option to work with.

Do not get us wrong, we are very big advocates of the cashless payment system. We use them all the time and we love the fact that we do not need to carry too much cash around, saves us the trouble of getting robbed off hundreds in Ringgit. Still, because there are so many payment options out there and not everyone uses all of them, it becomes troublesome for us too; we hate that.

We’ve always said then that for eWallets and cashless payments to work in Malaysia, there needs to be a unifying body that could make all the apps work seamlessly together. Because changing all the card receiver machines across the nation is impossible and it is impossible to implement NFC type payments in all devices, the easiest is to have a single unified QR code that could work with everyone regardless of app. This announcement then, is godsent.

PayNet and Cyberview plans to lead the way to digital Malaysia with cashless payment. Then again. Cyberview has been paving the way forward for plenty of things to do with digitalising Malaysia. PayNet is an affiliate of the National Bank of Malaysia, and has been digitalising and providing essential services for Malaysian banks in terms of their payment networks and infrastructure. Thanks to Paynet, we have things like DuitNow and even free instant transfer between banks. That should be the way forward too with eWallets.

With the collaboration PayNet will start implementing unique QR codes for shops that would replace the ten million QR codes generated for the shop by other eWallet vendors. With less clutter, they look less intimidating as well. For users, you can use any eWallet of your choice to pay for your meals and shopping. All you need to do is scan the DuitNow QR code and voila, you can pay using GrabPay, or Boost, or Touch n’ Go eWallet, or FavePay; technically anyway.

The only downside right now is that they are only implementing it in Cyberjaya, for now anyway. PayNet is looking to expand their DuitNow QR to other parts of Malaysia. We think that the service will really take off in Kuala Lumpur and other parts of Klang Valley. You might have to check also if your eWallet app is also a participating vendor within the DuitNow QR ecosystem. For more information regarding DuitNow QR, you can visit their website.