The Importance of Digital Money in Digital World

As time travels, from era to era, we all know that in this society that has been enveloped by technologies and computerized equipment, and by how fast and efficient everything has become, as one of the societies, we ought to be a part of the evolution, of the development and create an improvement as how we could. Days fly fast and we are not created to be left in the cold by technology, but to adapt to every newest gadget even if it doesn’t relate to our lifestyle. An important service that we have applied to our life since we were little is no other than transaction. We all have our own necessity or essential, we all live up to that by buying all of the requirements of our own, or even to our loved ones. But things had significantly changed, from the time where we used to pay with cash and pennies, but now as the technology fosters, and for other external causes, we all now have the term “Cashless Payment”. The evolution of payments has now reached the certain stage where we can now pay without using cash or having another separate wallet for ourselves to keep pennies even if it kept falling to the ground and making a fuss as we tried to keep our changes.  

The importance of knowing about digital money is now more than just a necessity, it is now considered as a basic knowledge to know about it since we are all enveloped in a digital world such as online shopping, contactless payment and top-up services. Now, we may all question the existence of cashless payment or digital money, and that is why we will have to rewind back to the late 1900s.

The first digital payment service of E-cash was introduced in 1997 by David Chaum. This digital payment supports the users to generate an anonymous online transaction. Still, due to many technical difficulties and managerial complications, the system failed.

One year later, Paypal was developed as an alternative way to traditional payment procedures such as cheque and money orders. Thus allows the users to transfer and to receive money using an email address and a linked bank account or credit card, with these simple transaction procedures enabled the Paypal to become the go-to payment platform for online auctions and e-commerce sites. 

In the early 2000s, the popularity of online shopping has grown significantly while more of the online merchants desired a way to make digital payments even more convenient for their customers and that is where Amazon and Google and other companies began to introduce their own payment systems like “Amazon Payments” and “Google Checkout”. 

In 2011, another big leap of milestones for digital payments came with the start of Square, a payment service that allows small businesses to accept credit card payments using just a mobile device and a card reader. The reformed payment procedure for any independent vendors and small merchants.

And in current days, in the consideration of smartphones’ popularity throughout nowadays, another payment procedure rises to adapt with the newest situation which people call Mobile wallets or E-Wallets. This system allows the users to deposit and to accumulate their debit and credit card information guardedly and use it for a variety of transactions.

And for those of you who want to convert your money digitally, there are various ways to convert that you can use. Topping up is a commonly used term to define converting physical money to digital money, and to do it, you will have to download an E-Wallet app on your mobile and transfer your money into your personal account like a bank transfer or even through outlets that collaborate with E-Wallet services. Once you have transferred your balance to your account, you can now use the money to proceed any transactions. To pay with your E-Wallet, you can open the app and select your payment option. Some options may be to scan the QR code that is preserved on the cashier, or the cashier themselves will ask for your account’s QR code for them to scan. Some merchants also have the appropriate machine on the counter for you to tap with your mobile and it can scan by its own. 

For those who are still confused of what app should you use, you can choose from one of these recommended services in Indonesia: 

• Gopay, a Gojek service transaction that provides a withdrawal feature so you can withdraw money in cash through a convenience store or transfer it to your bank account; 

• then we have OVO that are probably the most well-known platform with over 60,000 outlets partners throughout Indonesia and OVO is also affiliated with Grab so you can have an easier and faster payments; 

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