Many of us have come round to purchasing using credit cards but some profess certain unease when divulging personal details over the Internet.
Besides, some would want to have a limited access to money rather than an unlimited one, so as to control themselves from making purchases they later regret.
Parents could be willing to allow their children the freedom to have some money to spend, but would be unwilling to have them handle cash or to hand over their credit card.
There is now a safe and simple solution for all these worries. Earlier this week, Alert Communications launched paysafecard in Malta.
Alert has been appointed the sole distributor for paysafecard – a very popular payment solution, which is the leading prepaid means of electronic payment in Europe, allowing users to make payments quickly and securely over the Internet.
paysafecard is a totally secure electronic payment method, based on a cash prepayment, with users topping their balance in authorised stores and being issued with a 16-digit PIN to make online payments.
paysafecard users have their mind at rest that no bank account information, no credit card information and no personal details need to be disclosed in order to finalise a transaction. This ensures full confidentiality and security, ensuring that the user’s personal and financial information is never at risk online.
And purchases cannot be made for more than the limit of the card. Cards can be bought in the following amounts: €10, €25, €50 and €100. Once the limit is reached, the card becomes useless.
Payments using paysafecard can be made in over 3,500 authorised online shops and online entertainment sites in 53 countries worldwide.
There are already outlets in Malta that sell the card. To find out the nearest outlet, one should access the paysafecard.com website and find out the nearest outlet. The sales outlet finder is also available as a smartphone app. The customer then can use the card to buy anything from over 450,000 sales outlets all over the world.
Purchasing is quite simple: customers simply enter the 16-digit paysafecard PIN in a webshop’s online window.
Introducing the event, Claudine Cassar spoke about the recent achievements of Alert Communications. The company has now grown and employs about 50 people. It has been singled out as Malta’s best IT company by Mita. Furthermore, the company is now engaged in building a new head office across the road from its present location in Sta Venera. Construction should be finished by April with the company moving in by May.
Finance Minister Tonio Fenech said one of the signal success stories registered in Malta these past years were in the ICT and the Financial Services sectors and this new venture touches both of them.
The number of ICT businesses in Malta has doubled over recent years and amounts to 6,450 today. These companies have generated jobs.
2,000 businesses applied for the government’s tax credit scheme which offered some €7m as tax credits. Alert Communications itself has 26 employees on this scheme and recruited a further three from another scheme.
Udo Müller, director for paysafecard Group, then gave a detailed presentation of the solution to the guests and media present.
Alert is the sole authorised reseller of paysafecards in Malta and the system benefits from 10 years of experience.
Primarily, the card is for small purchases, for which using a credit card could be too onerous. In 2011, 45 million transactions were made using the paysafecards with the average card spending €25, thus amounting to more than €1bn in total.
The system has all the necessary permits to operate. It began in Vienna and then was extended to countries like Greece, Spain and the UK. In 2009, it became an authorised Mastercard reseller.
The card cannot be renewed or topped up, thus eliminating complications. Once it is spent, it becomes worthless and a new one must be purchased. In a way, it functions just like a mobile phone top up card. The consumer is not billed in any way for the card: if the consumer buys a €25 card, he gets the full €25 worth.