Colin Charles Agenda

There’s a chance that Malaysian payments will get shook up. From an online perspective, you’ve got the former nbepay becoming MOLPay. From an offline perspective, you’ve got a joint venture between softspace and MOL to form MOLCube (e27 cover it too). The center of all of this is MOL.

For me, I’ve been waiting for a softspace device for quite a few months. I was excited since April 2012. I was told a device would be coming my way from 18 June 2012, and never heard back; the presumption is that people are using this device according to their website. But it is not available for the “general population”.

I have never met Ganesh Kumar Bangah, the man behind MOL, but being a young CEO, I figure he’s got the chops & energy to pave the way. Besides, he’s backed by Berjaya tycoon Vincent Tan.

Ugliness begone, let there be better online & offline payments and this will pave the way for e-commerce as well as physical versions of e-commerce (pop-up stores, bazaars, heck, imagine your pasar malam vendor going online).

A lot of this will involve lobbying Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM). I don’t believe any payment gateway intentionally wants to provide terrible user experience, I believe its usually to feed regulatory requirements.

Looking forward to payments in 2013. It can only be better than today.

It didn’t take long for my prediction on 24 September to come true on 11 October. My suspiscion was also correct, it would be led by Marco Arment, but it had nothing to do with Instapaper, it was the launch of a new product titled The Magazine.

The reason to make it iOS 6 only?

It uses some iOS 6-only features and fonts, and it’s architected for iOS 6’s gesture handling. Setting this high baseline also greatly simplifies testing, maintenance, and future updates.

Wow. Fonts & gestures. Amazing.

Greed or tradeoff from Apple? 

Today I tried to checkout RM450 using iPay88. They only accept Visa or MasterCard credit cards, so I pulled my wallet out.

I thought I would use the Citibank card today. I got sent to an error page. So I clicked the back button to head back and thankfully this worked.

I dug further and found a Direct Access card. I have to choose an issuing bank and now had to think a little harder to figure out that this card belongs to CIMB. I was sent a code via USSD verification which was valid for a mere 3 minutes. I had to run to my phone which was charging upstairs and run back down to make the transaction.

Later I see an SMS from Citibank giving me my OneTime PIN that is valid for 4 minutes. I never even got the chance to use it.

Now, lets say I was the average consumer.

1. What would I have done with the error page?
2. How would I have reacted to seeing one design then seeing the iPay88 page? Seems close to an attack. Stripe doesn’t have this problem.
3. How quickly would I have retried the same credit card before I gave up on the online purchase?

Anecdotal evidence from several online stores that I’ve been involved in suggests Malaysians are a patient bunch. They try up to three times for a credit card transaction before abandoning the cart. Some will email because its clear they really want the item. Most truly just give up.

E-commerce is slated to be big. But fixing payments should be crucial.

Asking to buy advertising with a pitch such as:

Therefore I’m interested in buying advertisement space (my budget is unlimited).

Or worse, the following:

I would like to get an article on your blog about [REDACTED]. For this we would like to offer you 200 RM.

We are a [REDACTED] company and growing fast in all South East Asian markets. Once we get started we see the opportunity of building a long term relationship that would benefit both you and me.

We are currently handling a very handpicked selection of top blogs in Malaysia so the sooner you can get back to me the more I would be likely able to spend. Would be great if you can also send me your telephone number or skype account so we can have a quick chat on the details.

Do expect to get rather curt responses which tell you not to insult me.

NYT: The Thirst for Learning

YEOLSIMHI haeyo, Koreans say. Work hard. The phrase is spoken endlessly and serves both as a rallying call and a reminder that no one likes whiners. And no matter how hard a student is working, he or she can always work harder – or so goes the theory.

While I’m not a huge fan of the idea that a prep school starts at 7.40am and goes on right until 10.20pm, it is amazing to see the progress that South Korea has had in the past few decades. They’ve grown their GDP per capita almost three times over Malaysia’s, and it was only in the 80’s that they were still looking up towards Malaysia as a success story.

Remember to always take yourself and whomever is teaching you/speaking to you seriously. 

Just this week, I received feedback at a meeting and changed some slides for the next day’s presentation. The audience was impressed that I didn’t just say I’d take the feedback, but I acted on it by doing the necessary research in a limited timeframe. 

Remember to care. And be great.

FT: Time to open up at the office.

Vulnerability means opening yourself to hurt. And as hurt is something that hurts, opening yourself to it is something best avoided.

To risk getting hurt is brave. To act invulnerable is not.

The single most important difference between people who can connect and those who can’t is their willingness to be vulnerable.

Leaves me a lot to think about. I generally believe in having tall walls. Time to follow the work of Brené Brown clearly. 

Videos: The Power of Vulnerability, Listening to Shame.