How I Got My Public Bank Visa Electron Debit Card

Back in early November, after realizing that BCB MasterCard Debit card has been discontinued, I wrote that I wanted to apply for a Public Bank Visa Electron as a change. I finally did, here's a picture of my Public Bank Visa Electron debit card:

It took me a while to obtain this useful debit card for my online transaction. Firstly, I'm guilty of procrastinating thing and secondly, I was doing something else, that is for sure. However with my new pay on my upcoming new job, I am going to be eligible to apply for a credit card. Still, if I wanted to be debt free, I think I would be better staying away of those addicting credit cards. As you know, with more buying power comes greater paying responsibilities.

So, laying out the steps, here's a step by step explanation of what I did to get my hand on this debit card.

Step 1

After doing some extensive research on forums and other people's blog, the right thing to do to apply the card is to dot it online on Public Bank's website. Why apply online? From the input I received, if you go to your nearest branch, they will give you a form and asked you to post your application to Public Branch HQ nearby KLCC. Save yourself the petrol money apply it here.

Step 2

After you have finished Step 1, you'll be asked to print out the filled up application form, sign it and attach a photocopy of your Malaysian Identity Card. Post the form along with your photocopy of IC to the Public Bank address given. Now, your job is done, be patient and wait.

Some details here, I sent the application online on Wednesday 27th December 2006, post the application form using the snail mail on Thursday 28th December 2006. Since I live in KL, it should take like a day to arrive to Public Bank HQ. I could send it myself on my motorbike but it too much of a hassle, beside I'd be better spending 30 cent on postage than RM2 on my motorbike fuel.

After 21 days (or 3 weeks) which was on the 18th January 2007, I got my approval letter sent to me at home. The letter as you can see on the above includes my brand new card number and asked me to deposit at least RM25 into my approved debit card in order for them to send me the physical card. The RM25 should remain inside the account at anytime to make sure the card is active. If I don't deposit any money into the account within 2 months, the card would be discarded.

Here's the not so good part. On Monday 22nd January 2007, armed with RM50 cash to deposit. I went to my nearest Public Bank branch in Batu 3, Jln Ipoh, KL and found out that there was no cash deposit machine. There was only an ATM machine and a cheque deposit machine only. Since it was after working hour, I couldn't deposit the money over the counter. So, I returned home pissed and did an online transfer using Maybank2u instead. Maybank2u charges RM2 for interbank transaction and they say that it will take them 2 business days to complete the transaction. Yet another delay. My advice is to just do an online transfer and pay those RM2 service charge. You'll be a lot glad doing that fighting your way to the bank.

4 days later or on the 26th January 2007, my Public Bank Visa Electron arrived on my doorstep by the national courier service Poslaju. Still, I have no idea whether the card can be used or not because on the package letter, it says that the PIN number would be mailed separately. I did however tried verifying my PayPal account to receive a pending USD27 on my Paypal account (I'll blog about how I got my PayPal verified later).

Overall, it took me 30 days or a whole month to obtain my Public Bank Visa Electron. It could be done earlier but you need some extra effort I think. Now, that finishes my report on getting a Public Bank Visa Electron Debit Card. What I need right now is my PIN number to check my online statement (if there is any).

Related post:

• Which Malaysian Debit Card Should I Choose?
• BCB MasterCard Electronic Has Been Discontinued?

Car Insurance Financing For Malaysian

Earlier this month, my car insurance expired. Being in a low income bracket and living in Kuala Lumpur, renewing my car insurance requires almost a month of my salary and my savings can get depleted. What other choices do I have? The first thing I had on my mind is to get a loan. I'm not getting any personal loan just to pay for my car insurance because of their high interest rate. My only choice is now to get AEON Car Insurance Financing. By the way, I'm not getting paid for this post by AEON or any other party, this is just to share with you what I have found. Maybe I should ask them for a small fee to promote their products and services online, that would be a good idea.

The most interesting feature I like about AEON Malaysia website is their estimation calculator:

As you can see above, the maximum length of repayment is 10 months. Breaking it down, an insurance premium of RM1000 requires you to pay only RM114 per month. Eventhough the interest rate is calculated to be 14%, however it reduces my financial burden so I don't have to decide to withdraw my savings. Of course, if you can find the money the total amount, then there is no need to apply for this car insurance financing. This could have save you RM140. For more information, you can go to the nearest AEON Malaysia branches.

Eventually, I borrowed some money from my family since it is interest free. To not take things for granted, I recorded the money borrowed in my personal financial sheet. Well, at least now you know what other choices you have if you are stuck in a financial dilemma.

BCB MasterCard Electronic Has Been Discontinued?

This morning, I went to my nearest BCB or now it's called CIMB Bank branch. The reason I went there was to update my savings account passbook. I hadn't update my passbook since July 2005. Using a saving account for all my financial transaction, I couldn't track every spending I've made because there was no records available for small transactions made. I'm planning to open up a current account since there would be more benefits using that account. However, I'm not opening up an account so soon, I have to wait until I'm ready before I can do that.

So, while updating my passbook, I asked the officer for an application on BCB MasterCard Electronic. The officer then searched and searched for the application form. 5 minutes later, the officer came back to me and said that ever since BCB is now merged with CIMB, the card is now discontinued for application. Former card holders can still use their cards but new application is no longer available. I was quite disappointed because it wasn't easy for me to come to the bank, there was not enough parking outside, furthermore I had planned to apply for a debit card since last October.

End of last month and earlier this month, I tried to search for Ambank NexG Prepaid MasterCard at a few 7 Eleven branches. After asking several branches around my workplace and also around my home, one of the personnel told me that they have stopped distributing AmBank NexG Prepaid MasterCard. I have no clue why they stop the distribution but I was again disappointed. I wonder why there wasn't enough promotion and recommendation to use debit cards. Maybe financial institutions doesn't want you to use debit card and urge you to overuse your credit cards so that they can profit from you even more.

My only choice now is to apply for Public Bank Visa Electron.

I'm heading to Public Bank this week for an application form. Hope my application would turn up well because I don't want to be disappointed again this time.

Do You Really Believe In Multiple Stream Of Income?

I just watched a video by John Reese. He's one of my favourite online entrepreneurs and for many others that I have much respect. The topic he came out on his video is:

You can click on the above image to watch his video. It shatters all my belief of creating multiple streams of income. Well, come to think about it, it is quite true. If you are struggling in creating one stream of income, then how on earth can you create more. We all have an equal 24 hours a day in our everyday lives.

I bought this book 2 years back:

It's an eye opener to a whole different ways of creating incomes. By then, I found another one which I couldn't find at my local store:

Having a lot of information is good. Having a lot more FOCUS is even better.

Update 11/12/2006: John Reese has came out with a sequel of his video titled - A Focused Flood of Income. Check it out!

Micro Credit Loan: AEON Cash

In my previous post, I've have written about Xpress Cash by CIMB Bank. Yesterday, while browsing through The Star newspaper, I've spotted another one of these no hassle Micro Credit Loan by another financial institution called Aeon Fast Cash. Here's a screenshot of what they are offering:

Interested to see more about the information, click on the image above for a larger portion of the newspaper advertisement. Here is what Aeon Malaysia website is offering:

So, now we have an almost detail information in our hands. Let's do some calculation and some analysis on what we have. Assuming that we are not a member of their club, we would like to take a RM3000 loan from Aeon Fast Cash as opposed to Xpress Cash from CIMB Bank. Wait a minute, I don't have to calculate it myself, they already have a calculator, how cool is that?

So, now we calculate RM170 times 24 months, that would sum into RM4080 of repayment. That's RM1080 of profit for the bank. Comparing that to my previous CIMB Xpress Cash encounter, that RM168 less. Not bad, but still a lot of money you have to repay if you come from a lower income group. I haven't dig out any additional cost that comes with the loan term but you get the picture right?

Last week, the nation was shocked by a family who couldn't afford to pay back their loan from a loan shark and cost them their children and nearly their lives (click here to read about this sad story). So, this piece of information could be useful but can only be a useful tool if you have a strategy to repay it. Eitherway, I'm going to bootstrap and not going to apply for any loans at the moment.

Micro Credit Loan: It will Choke You!

I had a shortage of cash recently. With my small salary living in a big city, I can't really survive on my own. Which is why I need help. I'm quite lucky not to have any big debts yet that will jeopardize my financial life. I'm still living with my parents though. However, I need to find more ways to get my financial right and not just depending on my crappy job I am in right now. I'll write about my plan later on when I see some success over my implementation.

Down at the mall where my office is, there is a small bank BCB or is now called CIMB Bank. They are now promoting a microcredit loan called Xpress Cash. The financial product was launched by SBB Bank which now they have merged into CIMB Group. Their target market is for those who have an income of RM800 and above. The best part is, for loan under RM5000 there is no need for any guarantor and there are minimal documents to prepare. I was the perfect candidate to apply for the loan where I can apply for up to 5 times my monthly salary. They also provide flexible loan period however there are terms and condition on the fine print of the application you need to take a closer and careful look at.

After some careful study using details on the brochure, I am eligible and can easily apply for a loan using the documents that I could provide them. My goal was to take a RM3000 loan with 12 months repayment. My rough calculation estimated that I have to pay around RM250 a month while receiving RM2150 in cash after deducting the RM100 processing fees and 3 months of security deposit. I will lost almost 30% alone just for the process of the loan itself but I don't mind about it because I need the money to pay up something and ease myself from a financial strain.

To confirm my calculation, I call CIMB Bank and ask them about this product. To my surprise, the repayment for a RM3000 loan on a 12 months tenure is RM301 per month. I ask the officer about the interest rate, the amount she has given to me is already calculated with a 3% interest (daily rest basis). I then asked how much do I pay for a 24 months tenure, she replied back RM177 per month. I further asked her how do I payback the loan if I wanted an early settlement for the 24 months tenure. She told me that for an early settlement, I need to pay the balance amount in full plus an additional 3 months interest and a penalty fee of RM200. I said "What? I have to pay a penalty fee for an early settlement?", she answered that is for the breach of agreement when you've signed the release of the loan.

Let me summarize the figures back for a much clearer perspective:

• Loan Wanted: RM3000
• Option 1- Payback for a 12 months tenure: RM301
• Option 2- Payback for a 24 months tenure: RM177
• Cash that will be received after loan release (option 2): RM2369

The deductions:

• 3 months security deposit (We selected option 2): RM531
• Processing Fees: RM100

Early Settlement:

• Penalty Fees: RM200
• Interest Fees: 3 months interest of 3%

Here's another summary of how much the bank wins back their money:

• Loan given to you: RM3000
• Option 1- Money being paid back to the bank (12 months tenure): (RM301 X 12 months)= RM3612
• Option 2- Money being paid back to the bank (24 months tenure): (RM177 X 24 months)= RM4248

From Option 1, the bank gets back RM612
From Option 2, the bank gets back RM1248

Just look at how much the bank is making money out from you if you've decided to get the microcredit loan. I've finally decided not to apply for the loan as it will take away almost 20% of my current income as soonest the loan is approved and I'm stuck with it for 24 months of repayment. I don't want to give the bank more money, they've already sucked out a lot of other people's money. Just check out their financial statement and you'll find out that the numbers always grow every year eventhough the economy is not so good.

Bottomline, if you can find money to borrow from other alternatives, go for it. Don't deal with the banks or even worse, loan sharks. For me, I think I have to do some savings and review back my money management.

Update 25/11: I've found the website. Check out CIMB Xpress: Xpress Cash Personal Term Loan.

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Which Malaysian Debit Card Should I Choose?

Nowadays, bringing a lot of cash can be quite dangerous. You'll never know when you'll get robbed or you dropped your wallet somewhere and the best part, if you are a serial spender, you can't track where your money goes. That is why credit card is invented to make it more convenient for you to pay without bringing a lot of cash money. The downside of having a credit card is, you can somehow spend more than what you can afford. This is one of the reasons I heard on the news recently that there are more than 80 thousand people in Malaysia who are declared as bankrupt. Most of them are young people such as me.

Being in my current financial situation, I am not eligible to apply for a credit card. My confirmed yearly income is less than RM18,000. It’s somehow hurtful to see such low income I have. I heard that living in Kuala Lumpur, if your income is less than RM1,500 per month (RM18,000 per year), you are considered “Poor”. Anyway, I’m trying my best to earn money from other source of income or would be considering changing to another job.

I love the online world, it is fast paced, easy for me and I’m online most of the time. Having a credit card would be useful for me such as, verifying my PayPal account and doing online transactions for online shopping and online related stuff. Since I cannot apply for a credit card, there is another way of doing it, Debit Cards. A few years back, Malaysian banks doesn’t really emphasize on this product, now they do and we should take advantage of what is available for us today.

Alright, I have 4 debit cards available to choose from. Every one of them is cool however I would prefer the best debit card that suit my geographical location and where am I going to spend it. Here we go:

BCB MasterCard Electronic

I have a savings account on BCB (now it's called CIMB Bank) and I use that account to withdraw my salary. The company I work has an account on CIMB Bank. There's a mini branch just down my office and there is also a branch nearby my house. This debit card one is on top of my list now since it gives me a lot of convenience. Here's more info about this debit card.

Ambank NexG Prepaid MasterCard

This MasterCard prepaid was launch earlier this year by AmBank. The building where my office is located is owned by AmBank Group. So, there is a AmBank branch just downstairs. The card is also available at 7 Eleven but what I don't like is the high fees they charge. Here's more info about this debit card.

Public Bank Visa Electron

This is the only Visa debit card I found. I once had a BSN Visa Electron but I've never used it before. It is actually almost the same whether Visa or MasterCard but MasterCard because of it's branding strategies look far more superior than Visa. Maybe I'll apply for one when I have excess cash on my hand. Here's more info about this debit card.

AffinBank Debit MasterCard

This debit card was launched last week. It has Touch n Go facilities with it. I have a Touch n Go card which I use frequently so this debit card would be useful. However, I have to open up an account with Affin Bank first before I can apply for one. AffinBank has a branch located nearby my house but I have to cross the road to get there. BCB (CIMB Bank) branch is just the opposite of it. Well, I prefer to not to cross the road here in Kuala Lumpur. The traffic here is crazy. Here's more info about this debit card.

My decision now is to go for BCB (CIMB) Prepaid MasterCard. I'll update you on the process I had to go and details stuff when I get my hands on the card. If you can read Malay, SmartUsaha.com has an interesting post about obtaining a debit Mastercard Electronic.

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