Electronic money and online shopping which card best?

[vocalneal]

OK so i have a bank account but it is company Sinar Mas which seems to be useless for anything except receiving salary and cash from ATM.

So i need a card for local on-line shopping etc.

Which is the best or a good way to proceed.

I heard Mandiri has a card specifically for on-line shopping but does that mean I have to open a Mandiri bank account. Are there other choices.

Our office "agent" is good but there is a limit to which I feel i should bother him with personal stuff.

 

[atlantis]

I use tokopedia for most of my online purchases and pay either with klik BCA (internet banking service of BCA) and the sms banking service of BNI. Never had any problem so far.

 

[harryopal1]

I also use BCA with a card and have not had any problems nor with klik transfers. I would suggest you don't fall back on Visa or Mastercard from an expat bank as it will mean currency transfers and very poor rates of exchange.

 

[snpark]

I concur BCA is the best domestic bank, never have problems with online shopping either with debit or credit card, you get sms notification and they use the visa verify thing where visa sends you a number on your phone which you have to put on the website payment screen

 

[waarmstrong]

I would be more concerned about having your pay deposited in a do nothing bank.

 

[vocalneal]

I would be more concerned about having your pay deposited in a do nothing bank.

No choice. It is a proper bank? Bank Sinar Mas and they have ATM's in town but use something called Union Pay . I see it as basically an extension of the group's payroll dept.. Deposit your pay in a company bank but you don't take it all out at once so it spreads the cash flow a bit. I can open a USD account but i pay for the exchange rate etc.

 

[cosmicgirl]

I use my BCA account via mobile-banking for every transaction I did in Tokopedia, Lazada, Sociolla etc. it works just fine

 

[waarmstrong]

No choice. It is a proper bank? Bank Sinar Mas and they have ATM's in town but use something called Union Pay . I see it as basically an extension of the group's payroll dept.. Deposit your pay in a company bank but you don't take it all out at once so it spreads the cash flow a bit. I can open a USD account but i pay for the exchange rate etc.

I cannot see that it matters if your Sinar Mas account is denominated in USD or IDR; most major Indonesian banks offer accounts in both currencies. Why not open an account at BCA, Mandiri or other major bank offering a full range of customer services including credit and debit cards and on-line banking? Then electronically transfer the bulk of your salary as soon as it is paid, keeping only a minimum balance at the proprietary company bank.

 

[snpark]

I was going to mention something about money laundering and why a huge property conglomerate would also own their own bank but then I decided not to ;-)

 

[harryopal1]

Before transferring wages from your bank to a local bank it is worth checking out the exchange rate your home bank will give you. The rates on transfers offered by major banks are appalling. Before seeing advice from this forum to use Transfer wise I lost hundreds of dollars taken by my home bank, Westpac in Australia. A substantial difference in what ends up in your account here.

 

[vocalneal]

OK cheers

 

[waarmstrong]

Before transferring wages from your bank to a local bank it is worth checking out the exchange rate your home bank will give you. The rates on transfers offered by major banks are appalling. Before seeing advice from this forum to use Transfer wise I lost hundreds of dollars taken by my home bank, Westpac in Australia. A substantial difference in what ends up in your account here.

About 40% of Panin Bank is owned by the Australia & New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ.AU). Perhaps that is why the bank offers a very competitive exchange rate, for USD, anyway. We have both USD & IDR accounts and get the daily rate (currently at around $1:14,850; the AUD is 1:10,700) when transferring between accounts. We separate our conversion decisions and timing from our transfer abroad decisions.