Is cash still the best on the market
In terms of banking and finance, Indonesia is still far behind compared to other developed countries. Maybe if you are in Europe, Singapore, Australia, or America, you can easily pay using a QR code in a traditional market, or at any store, you can pay using a debit card with one tap.
Indeed, ATMs are now valid for 24 hours to be able to withdraw cash, but isn't this one of the difficulties when you have to move to one of the nearest ATMs? Not to mention if it turns out that the ATM has an error, or there is no content, it means that you have to look for another ATM. Another thing is the problem of transaction fees if a different bank is used for the ATM.
Recently, in Indonesia, especially in big cities such as Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan, Bali, and other big cities, the use of cashless payments has begun to be encouraged. Although e-money or credit cards have been used for a long time, in the past two years, many QR codes/barcodes for cashless payments have started to appear. Call it Gopay, LinkAja, OVO, Dana, and others. To encourage people to use non-cash payments, the government and the parties concerned are doing a lot of promotions to make non-cash payments, where they can get cashback, discounts, or other promos. Apart from that, there are other conveniences to using a phone number as an account number which is usually difficult to memorize. Cashless payments can be said to be late in Indonesia, but is that a bad thing? Not really, maybe everything is still based on conditions and the distribution of infrastructure in the territory of Indonesia, so that cash payments are better and are still widely used by Indonesian citizens.
On the one hand, the QR code/barcode cashless payment with an e-wallet does offer greater comfort, convenience, and security than the use of cash payments. On the other hand, the privacy factor is more clearly recorded and can be monitored by banks and the government. So as a user it feels more lack of privacy. Anyway, for me personally, the use of e-money is very practical, where making purchases or banking transactions is easier and faster and can be done at any time. Such as buying electricity tokens, paying taxes, purchasing data, shopping online, or sending and receiving money becomes easier.
From there you can feel the benefits, then what about cryptocurrencies that offer more advantages than digital money or e-wallet? For crypto, of course, the most different thing from e-money is that there is no limit to the size of the daily withdrawal transaction, and it offers more privacy than an e-wallet.
Again, unfortunately, there are still conflicts with the law, not to mention the problem of the lack of infrastructure and massive learning for Indonesian citizens. Just look at e-money, it still faces obstacles where cash is still the biggest choice factor in many parts of Indonesia, especially for the use of crypto money. Because the traditional way is still considered the best for most people. For them, the convenience offered is a difficulty for them. So for users and crypto lovers, especially Indonesian citizens, it is still a big problem to fight for crypto. Plus there are still many who consider crypto a fraud or mere gambling.
If crypto will in fact become the Digital Currency of the Future, then what about the problem of the existence of the law that was previously applicable? Such is the physical condition of the truth of a legal entity, valid only because it follows a condition that does not follow fixed rules and only benefits unilaterally, especially the elites on behalf of the common people.
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All images from Unsplash
I am also new to using e-wallet especially crypto is very new. And I'm also still using it manually. And for now I still trust the Bank to save my finances, especially now that withdrawals are also easy to do through small outlets that provide transfer, withdrawal and deposit services even from small amounts at low costs.