Visa aims to improve people's money skills
Visa aims to improve people's money skills
Mario Koch, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
At its Indonesian headquarters at Wisma 46-Kota BNI, Central
Jakarta, Visa International held the second in a series of media
workshops titled "MyMoneySkills" last Tuesday.
Since their website www.mymoneyskills.com has been available
in Bahasa Indonesia since last year, the company is aiming to
inform the public about the project's objective.
The focus of the latest event was on how to make a budget and
accumulate savings (see adjacent story).
Suspicions that the company might have been aiming at winning
new customers unused to spending large amounts of money they did
not have by using a credit card were quickly dispelled.
"The ultimate intention of the website is to provide people
with free and easy-to-understand information about personal money
management", Visa International Indonesia deputy country manager
Harianto Gunawan told The Jakarta Post.
"As the world's leading credit card company, we feel
responsible for educating both customers and noncustomers in the
area of money skills and financial basics.
"You won't find any tips about speculation opportunities on
the stock market or similar on the website as it is genuinely
designed to serve the average citizens' needs", he said.
Nevertheless, Visa is aware that, as the information is being
presented via the Internet, only the middle and upper segments of
society will be reached.
The user-friendly website, the English version of which went
online in 2003, is structured around five main themes ranging
from budgeting and saving or managing debt to wisely using one's
credit and debit cards.
Here one can discover the big advantages of starting to save
money when still young or the correct appliance of "the rule of
72" (which estimates how long it will take to double your
investment).
Additionally, the site deals with matters such as card
security and identity theft. Enlightenment on how to prevent the
latter, according to Harianto, is of particular importance in
Indonesia.
"People here often hold far too many cards, each equipped with
its own PIN (personal identification number). To remember all of
these, they tend to write the numbers down and carry them in the
same place as the cards.
"Or they feel too busy to withdraw money from an ATM
themselves and thus allow third parties like secretaries or
office boys to have access with their secret data", he said,
adding that by doing so, cardholders were greatly increasing the
risk of misuse.
Some of the most beneficial features of www.mymoneyskills.com
are its convenient financial tools, like the budget calculator or
the roadmap designed to enable visitors to read their credit card
statements.
After having carefully browsed through the site's contents,
one can test if one is on the right track by taking part in a
challenging quiz.
The website is certainly a useful little guide through the
dense jungle of personal financial management.