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.