“Stretch your payment with the new PB Flexipay”

This is the slogan for Public bank new product “PB Flexipay”, a new product that allow you to convert your purchase to pay in installment method. The flexipay is different with the 0% IPP (Zero Percent Instalment Payment Plan) even though both allowed you to pay for purchase through installment scheme. For 0% IPP purchase, the installment interest payable to bank is paid by merchant and for the flexipay is paid by consumer to bank.

The flexipay is a very consumer friendly product if you required to purchase in large amount and the merchant do not provide 0% IPP.  With minimum interest paid to subscribe to the flexipay, now you can settle your purchase in installment way instead of pay off the bill immediately.

Public Bank Flexipay is one of the lowest offer in current market right now.

A one-ime interest will be charged upfront and the interest rates is based on the installment tenure.

• 2% for a 6-month instalment plan (Minimum purchase amount is RM 1,000)
• 3% for a 12-month instalment plan (Minimum purchase amount is RM 2,000)
• 6% for a 24-month instalment plan (Minimum purchase amount is RM 4,000)

To subscribe to PB Flexipay, card member must inform PB Card Services (PBCS) by calling the Customer ServiceDepartment of PBCS at 03 – 2176 8000 or complete the Flexipay application form and return it by fax or mail to PBCS.

*** Flexipay only applicable to retail purchase only, not applicable to cash withdrawal, balance transfer, annual fees, finance charge.

Please visit the site for more information & terms and conditions.
http://www.pbebank.com/en/en_content/personal/promotions/flexipay.html

To make online shopping safer, it is advise to make sure you have an extra level of authentication. The ‘extra’ level, is a password that you will have to enter after entering your credit/debit card details while making online payments.

This new technology is called Verified by Visa (for Visa card) or MasterCard SecureCode (for MasterCard).

Verified by Visa (VbV) is an online service designed to make Internet transactions safer by authenticating a cardholder’s identity at the time of purchase. Verified by Visa software installed at a merchant website activates the cardholder interface during the authentication process.

The goal of Verified by Visa is to create a level of consumer trust and confidence in online shopping similar to that in the physical shopping environment. It is designed to improve both cardholder and merchant confidence in Internet purchases as well as reduce disputes and fraudulent activity related to the use of Visa payment cards. As a merchant you can benefit from guaranteed payments and reduced costs associated with the most common types of Internet disputes with Verified by Visa.

Visa official website has provided animated demonstrations show how simple it is for customers to use Verified by Visa:

• Verified by Visa activation during shopping demo
• Verified by Visa enrollment demo
• Verified by Visa shopping demo

MasterCard SecureCode is a new service from MasterCard and your card issuer that provides added protection when you buy online. There is no need to get new Mastercard card. You choose your own personal MasterCard SecureCode and it is never shared with any merchant. A private codes means added protection against unauthorized use of your credit or debit card when you shop online. Every time you pay online with your MasterCard card, a box pops up from your card issuer asking you for your personal SecureCode, just like the bank does at the ATM. In seconds, your card issuer confirms it’s you and allows your purchase to be completed.

You can check out the basic demonstration provided in MasterCard official website from the link below.

How It Works Demonstration

Bear in mind that not all banks in Malaysia offering this extra security safeguard a.k.a Verified By Visa & MasterCard SecureCode. Having this extra security feature can safeguard your cards against Internet transaction fraud.

Please do enroll your cards to Verified By Visa or MasterCard SecureCode as soon as possible. Internet transaction can be happened anytime if your card number, name, expiration date and CVV number being exposed. We don’t know when this will happen and this is possible happen, especially those people with quick reading can read and memorize these information within few seconds.

List of bank in Malaysia offering Verified By Visa & MasterCard SecureCode:

(click the name of the bank to visit the bank official page for more information)

• Alliance Bank
• EON Bank
• HSBC
• MBF – Visa, MBF – MasterCard
• Hong Leong Bank
• Public Bank
• Bank Islam
• CIMB Bank
• Maybank (Maybankard Secure Online Shopping (MSOS))
• RHB Bank
• Direct Access

Don’t forget to check out this site for step by step to activate Verified By Visa & MasterCard SecureCode for most of banks listed above.
http://www.ipay88.com/my/3dsecure.asp

Lastly, make sure you know How To Prevent Credit Card Fraud.

Today, I purposely took one hour off in the early morning before went to work to go to banks. I was thinking one hour should be long enough for me to go to two banks within the same area, to perform these two tasks:

1. Open a new basic saving account in Maybank
2. Linked my property loan into Public bank online banking.

At 9.10am, I arrived at Maybank branch and waiting for the branch open at 9.15am.  I took more than 5 minutes to fill in the lenghty account opening form, which contained 4 pages back and front, to fill in those less important information such as interest, company information, income, etc. Then wait for the officer the proccess the document, create account, prepare the ATM card, collect money and activate the online banking. At 10.00am, I finally settle everything for opening the new account, including changing ATM pin number and activated online banking.

Then I drive to Public bank to linked my property loan to online banking. Everything going fast but at the end the officer told me that my wife need to sign the document as the the loan was joint between our name. I have to come back with my wife again to settle it.

The time I left the bank was 10.20am, longer than expected and I have to rush back to office.

Image credit to moonjazz

The conclusion of my unpleasant banking experiences:

• The process to open new account in Maybank is time consuming. There’s room to improve in my opinion.
• The online banking of Public Bank is incovenience as you have to visit branch and manually linked the account. Please enlighten me if you have others bank which required to manual linking as well. I have few accounts(saving and current), personal loan and credit cards with SC and all linked automatically with single online banking.

More information about Maybank basic saving account:

• You can choose one of the two options: Unlimited ATM withdrawals and over the counter transactions at an annual fee of RM8 or 8 times ATM cash withdrawal transactions with no annual fee.
• You have to create new login for the Maybank2u online banking. If you already have Maybank2u login previously, you new account will not appear in your existing Maybank2u account.  Both online banking account works independently but you can enjoy unlimited transfer between both accounts.

Hurray!! I can start saving RM3 per months for the GIRO.

Image credit to libraryman

Visit the link below to know more benefit of basic saving account and list of the bank offering this type of account.

http://moneysospecial.com/deposits/you-must-know-it-basic-saving-account/

Securing a mortgate loan is the most important step in the home-buying process. However, choosing the most suitable mortgate loan can be one of the most stressful and important decisions in a persons life.

So I am going to share my experience in getting housing loan for my dream house, which I posted before in my personal blog, CherasVista.blogspot.com.

Getting loan for my property

One month after paid the booking fees, we finally made the decision to accept the offer from Public Bank. The process of getting housing is not easy task for new buyer like us. We spend quite a lot of times to meet with banker, agent to know more details about the available loan types in market now. We learned numerous of the “new terms” during the proccess such as conventional, semi-flexi and fully flexi, FEC, ZEC, NZEC, lock-in period, penalty, etc…Wow, not easy man.

RM50 per transaction (heard this can request to waive )

Bank: Hong Leong

Rates: BLR-2.15 Whole Tenure

Loan Type: Fully flexi, Free Entry Cost (FEC)

My thought:

Actually Standard Chartered bank can offer better rate but they declined my application due to SC not the panel bank of Cheras vista 3. I got to know other borrower able to get better rates from public bank, which is BLR-2.3(when we applied and was told will get this rate) even for lower loan amount. I tried to call the banker to ask for appeal but he is not very helpful to fight for better rate. So end up we didn’t do any appeal and just accept the offer. There might be some factor caused us unable to get our desire rate, but we tried our best already and we just accept it. No point getting mad because of extra few hundreds per year.

The most important thing is we got our dream house.

Visa & MasterCard are the most popular credit card issuer in Malaysia. There’s no different when using the card for purchase. However, each card issuer offered different promotion and privileges. The promotion and privileges are different for each types of the card as well. So it is good to know which bank offered Visa or MasterCard and the types of the card as well, to fully enjoy the privileges of the card.

This post summarized the list of credit cards available in Malaysia. The table below will showing the list of bank and the types of credit card offered, either class, gold, platinum, Visa Infinite or World MasterCard.

From the table above, we can know that CIMB bank is the only bank offered the complete set of credit cards for Visa & Master Card, range from the classic card to the highest range of the card, Visa Infinite & World MasterCard.

The following information is deemed correct at the time of posting. Feel free to contact me if there’s any correction to made. Thanks.