VIDEO DESCRIPTION:
E-wallets have become extremely popular in many countries across Asia. Malaysia’s Touch ‘n Go e-wallet is one such app, and it has grown into a truly international financial tool. The marketing and advertising for Touch ‘n Go talks about how it can be used in many other countries around the world, not just in Malaysia.
And one of those countries is neighbor Indonesia. Malaysia’s e-wallets and financial institutions are all linked together through the national DuitNow system. And DuitNow is firmly linked with Indonesia’s equivalent, known as QRIS, or Quick Response Code Indonesia Standard. Because of that, anyone using the Touch ‘n Go e-wallet can use it across Indonesia simply by scanning a QRIS code.
I wanted to test this for myself and learn how this system works, and I shot this video in Banda Aceh as I went about my daily life as a tourist and visitor and tried to use Touch ‘n Go in a wide variety of situations.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome back to Planet Doug. I’m in Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia right now, and I wanted to test something that I’m really curious about. Can you use Malaysia’s Touch ‘n Go e-wallet here in Indonesia? Now, I’m a tourist. I’m not Indonesian. I don’t have an Indonesian bank account. And while I was in Malaysia, I downloaded the Touch ‘n Go app to my phone and then I flew here to Banda Aceh with a balance in my account. In theory, Touch ‘n Go should work in Indonesia because it connects with QRIS, the national QR code payment system in use all across the country. But of course, I didn’t want to rely on theory. I wanted to try it out in real shops. So, in this video, I’ll show you real-life examples of me using Touch ‘n Go all over Banda Aceh in markets, in local coffee shops, in fancy coffee shop chains, in local restaurants, in fast food restaurants, in supermarkets, anywhere where I could scan the Indonesian QRIS QR code. And after each example, I’ll share with you one or two pro tips so you will know what to expect. This video isn’t sponsored by anyone, by the way. I’m just a traveler and I love systems and technology and figuring out all the nitty-gritty details of how things work, even when they drive me crazy. But before I get too deep into the nitty-gritty, let me show you examples of how I use Touch ‘n Go here in Banda Aceh in my daily life.
I pay for a delicious lunch of mie aceh at a local restaurant. So, I opened up my Touch ‘n Go e-wallet app. And you notice that up at the top, the currency is now in Indonesian rupiah. That’s the main big number, but then right underneath it, it also shows the balance in Malaysian ringgit. So, you see rupiah and ringgit on the same page. Harganya tiga puluh.
So my bill is 30,000 tiga puluh ribu and then if you want to pay with Touch ‘n Go via QRIS via QRIS. So this is the QR code. The red triangle is for the local payment QRIS. That’s the equivalent of the Malaysian DuitNow. So you look for that QR code. So in this case I scan their code. So, I just scan the code and now you notice that the payment comes up in Indonesian rupiah and there’s the name of the business. So, you make sure the business matches and now I just input 30,000.
So there we have 30,000 rupiah and it tells you the equivalent in ringgit which is 7.12 ringgit right there. Confirm paying that amount and you have to authenticate either with your PIN, facial recognition or fingerprint. I chose fingerprint.
And the payment goes from Touch ‘n Go to DuitNow to QRIS. And of course, you have to have a local internet connection for this to work. Mobile internet.
They sent my money my money to Bakso Barokah. And then you get a payment page with all of the information.
Okay. Oh, photo. So, he’s going to take a picture of it to confirm for their own records. Okay. Masih.
And there you have it. You can see it was done through DuitNow QR even though I was paying in Indonesia.
And pro tip once you’re done you can click on the transactions button and you will see a list of all of your DuitNow Touch ‘n Go transactions. And you can see right there Bakso Barokah they deducted 7.58 ringgit. So you can confirm the details that everything is okay. Pro tip, when you have your Touch ‘n Go e-wallet, you see up in the top left corner, there’s a drop-down menu with a list of countries and country flags. And when you go to a new country, you can change your country setting. In my case, when I came here, I didn’t do it right away because I didn’t really understand what I was doing. So, I just left it alone. And when I went to sleep my first night, it was still set to Malaysia. And then the next day, like 24 hours later, I checked and my Touch ‘n Go e-wallet app had automatically switched over to the Indonesian setting. But it’s important to realize that even though it changed to Indonesia, nothing has happened to your balance in Malaysian ringgit. Whatever money you had in your Touch ‘n Go e-wallet, it’s still there in the balance and it is still in Malaysian ringgit. But now that you’re in Indonesia, they show you its equivalent in Indonesian rupiah. So every transaction you make, they take that amount of money, convert it into rupiah for the payment. But your balance itself, it stays in Malaysian ringgit. And in my case, as I said, my e-wallet switched into Indonesian settings automatically all by itself. I didn’t have to do it.
I use Touch ‘n Go here in Indonesia to get a special meal, a special treat from KFC.
38. Okay, sure. And bisa QRIS. Okay. Yeah. Bisa QRIS. So I’ve asked whether I can use QRIS for payment. He said yes. Oh, and they show me a QR code on their scanner. So I open up Touch ‘n Go. I scan their code.
Ah, and it gives me the price automatically. 38,000 Indonesian rupiah, 9.6 ringgit. I pay and authenticate. And there we go. Nothing could be easier. Great. Money successfully sent to KFC Suzuya branch inside the shopping mall. And here on the payment page, you can see again though it’s not showing the correct amount in Indonesian rupiah. It’s saying 38 or 3,800. Thank you. When it should say 38,000. So I’m not sure what’s going on there. I know there is a movement afoot in Indonesia to get rid of three zeros. So maybe they’ve already done it on some of the apps. I’m not sure. But you can still see the Malaysian ringgit 9.6 ringgit for a meal at Kentucky Fried Chicken. So once you’re done, hit done. And if you want to doubly confirm. Thank you. So, there you have it. The Kentucky Fried Chicken meal that I purchased using Touch ‘n Go. And you can see the transaction right there. KFC Suzuya Banda Aceh deducted 9.6 ringgit. Nothing could be easier. Pro tip, KFC is one of the big chains or stores in Indonesia where you can use Touch ‘n Go. If you want to see a long list of all of the participating merchants, just go to the Touch ‘n Go app, click on the button places to shop and you will see a list of merchants like this.
I use Malaysia’s Touch ‘n Go e-wallet app at large supermarkets and grocery stores and department stores like Suzuya.
Bisa QRIS. Yeah. No.
So I asked if they accept QRIS and she said yes. So now I’m just going into Touch ‘n Go. Ah. Oh, that’s interesting. So they have a machine here that prints out a QR code and I scan the code. Yeah. And it comes to 926. Well, that’s ringgit 36,700 Indonesian rupiah. Yep. So I pay authenticate and we’re sending your money. Can you? Yep. Right. So,
wonderful. Thank you very much. My milk. Nice to meet you. You too. So, there you go. In a big store like Suzuya, they have it all set up where they even have their own printer, which I’ve never seen before. So, that’s a new system where their machine prints out a completely separate receipt that has the QR code printed on it and then you scan the QR code, make the payment, and after the payment goes through, then they give you another receipt, like the official receipt from the cash register. And that’s how it works at Suzuya. Really cool, very smooth, very efficient.
I pay for cold drinks, soap, household goods at Indomaret, Indonesia’s largest chain store. It’s like the Indonesian version of 7-Eleven. Actually, no. One thing I learned about the Touch ‘n Go e-wallet from Malaysia, I can use it at all these tiny shops. I can use it in the markets, I can use it at little restaurants. But the one place I can’t use it, they do not accept it at Indomaret. Same thing for Alfamart, they do not accept international e-wallets. I did some research online and it appears that they will use Indonesian e-wallets, but not international ones from other countries. So, that’s a little bit of a problem for a foreign visitor here. I think most of us would go to a place like Indomaret very often and if your e-wallet from Malaysia doesn’t work here. Yeah, that’s a big problem. It’s a big inconvenience. I use the Malaysian Touch ‘n Go e-wallet app and Touch ‘n Go card to ride on the local buses here in Banda Aceh. Actually, no. I tricked you again. The bus system here does not accept Touch ‘n Go e-wallet or the Touch ‘n Go card. So, you can’t do that here either. Pro tip, you can’t ride on the buses here with the Touch ‘n Go e-wallet or the Touch ‘n Go card like you can in Malaysia. You can’t pay with money either. So, if you want to ride on the buses here in Banda Aceh, you can’t pay with cash and you can’t pay with an e-wallet. You have to get what they call an e-money card. And each of the local banks here makes their own e-money card. I have the Mandiri e-money card. And with this card, I can tap on and off of the bus and make a payment that way. Though at the moment, for some reason, the buses here in Banda Aceh are free. But even though they’re free, you still have to have a e-money card like this in order to get on the bus.
I use Touch ‘n Go to buy credit or what they call pulsa here in Indonesia for my Telkomsel SIM card. To do that, I go to the Telkomsel app on the homepage and down here you can buy packages or buy credit and they call credit pulsa. So I want to buy credit for my account. And here I can choose how much I want to buy and the validity period. So, what I’m going to do just as an experiment here is choose 30,000 rupiah valid for 30 days. Click on that. Tells you about your activity period. Just hit continue. And now you get to the payment stage. So, you can pay using all of these e-wallets. These are all the local Indonesian e-wallets. GoPay, OVO, Dana, ShopeePay, LinkAja. But because I have Touch ‘n Go, I can use QRIS. And QRIS is their national QR code standard. So, I select QRIS. Then I select pay and it gives me a QR code and it gives me looks like 30 minutes in order to complete the payment. So then I switch to my other phone where I have my Touch ‘n Go e-wallet from Malaysia.
Open Touch ‘n Go. Scan with my fingerprint. And here on the Touch ‘n Go main page, you have a choice between pay and scan. And in this case, I want to scan their QR code. So, I open up the scanner. And now we scan the QRIS code. And there you go. Look at that. Touch ‘n Go e-wallet. So the payment is 7.58 ringgit for 30,000 rupiah. I select you can see here it says 30,000 Indonesian rupiah the equivalent there’s the exchange rate so you could compare that to the bank’s exchange rate if you wish and it gives you the equivalent 7.58 ringgit. Down at the bottom there’s a pay button. I select that. You have to authenticate with your biometrics or PIN. I’ve chosen fingerprint. And now they’re sending the money. And 7.58 has been deducted from my Touch ‘n Go e-wallet balance. I get the confirmation page. That looks a little bit odd there at the top that says 30. It’s missing a zero. Which is odd. It should say 30,000. So maybe the system isn’t always perfect, but it does say underneath 7.58 ringgit. And that’s correct. So I’ve actually paid 30,000. But it’s showing me an incorrect amount there. But you can see it was done through DuitNow, which is the Malaysian system, even though I’m here in Indonesia. And now that I’m done, you can go to your transactions and you can see on the list of transactions that you’ve paid. So right here, recent transactions, my Telkomsel app minus 7.58 ringgit. And so now to confirm, I’ve already scanned this code. So I can back out of there. And if all has worked, if I refresh this page, my credit should go from zero to 30,000. I don’t know whether there’s an administrative fee for this purchase, but we’ll find out in a second. Let’s see if I can refresh. There we go. I refreshed the page. 30,000 rupiah. And now that I have 30,000 rupiah in my account for Telkomsel, now I can go to the data packages. And here I can scan through all the various data packages and choose one that I want to purchase based on the type of data I want and the validity period, etc. So that’s it. Using Malaysia’s Touch ‘n Go e-wallet to buy credit for my Telkomsel SIM card in Indonesia. Pro tip, in that example, I was using one phone, my Touch ‘n Go phone, to scan the QR code on a different phone. So, I can do that because I have two phones. But what do you do if you only have one phone? The QR code is on the screen of this phone, but then you have to scan it with the camera of this phone. So, you’re stuck, aren’t you? No, you aren’t because Touch ‘n Go thought of that. If you’re in that situation where you have a QR code on the screen of your Touch ‘n Go phone, open up the scanner and then underneath the scanning window, there is a button called gallery and that will open up the photo gallery on your phone. So, what you do is when you have the QR code visible on your phone, save it as a screenshot, which puts it into your phone’s photo gallery. Then click on the gallery button. It opens up the photos and then you can scan the QR code from the screenshot. To show you what I mean, here is a QR code from my favorite Bakso restaurant. And I want to scan this code, but it’s on my phone. So, what I do is take a screenshot there. I just took a screenshot of my phone screen. Now, I can go to Touch ‘n Go, sign in, click on the scan button, and now here underneath the scanning window, you can see a button labeled gallery. Click on gallery and it will open up your photos on your phone. And there it is. There the screenshot that I just took. I click on that and it automatically scanned the QR code and then opened up the payment window for Bakso Barokah. So that is how you do it. If you have only one phone, I use Touch ‘n Go here in Sumatra to get an ice cream cone at Mixue. Hello. Vanilla ice cream cone.
Bisa QRIS bisa. So there is the code here at Mixue. You can see it says QRIS at the top and look for that sort of a red triangle. Shows you where it is. And just open Touch ‘n Go. Scan button as always. Scan the code. And here it does not enter the amount. So you have to put it in. Delapan ribu. Yeah. So delapan ribu 8,000. Enter it yourself. Make sure you don’t type in an extra zero. Check the amount. Confirm.
And it’s paying. I believe I will have to confirm the purchase. Authenticate. We’re sending your money to Mixue Cik Ditiro.
Money successfully sent.
And there she took a picture of my payment confirmation page and you’re all done. And you get your receipt. Couldn’t be easier. And there is my ice cream from Mixue. Purchased with the power of Touch ‘n Go. But pro tip, some places the amount that you need to pay is automatically inserted into Touch ‘n Go. Other places like Mixue, you’re just presented with a blank screen and you have to enter the amount. I use Touch ‘n Go to buy a coffee and a snack from J.Co or J.Co Donuts & Coffee bisa QRIS.
So, I asked him whether I can use QRIS, the Indonesian system. So, I open up Touch ‘n Go and then I wait to see what the system is here, whether he scans my code or I scan his. It looks like he’s going to show me a code for them.
And he’s entering the amount. Okay, there it is coming up generating a QR and there it is. You see the red triangle. So you press the scan button on Touch ‘n Go. Scan their code. So it just came up. It’s 49,000 Indonesian rupiah, 12.4 ringgit. I pay authenticate with my thumbprint and we’re sending your money to J.Co Donuts and Coffee. And there we have it. Nothing could be easier.
Thank you. So, I ended up with two receipts. One here. It looks like they register their company through the BRI bank and that bank connects with QRIS and they provide a customer copy of the QR code and then there is a regular receipt itemized as usual from the shop. I’ve never been here before. I’ve never come to J.Co before. I only came here to demonstrate the power of Touch ‘n Go in Sumatra. And of course, you get an itemized receipt on your Touch ‘n Go app showing the name of the business paid through a DuitNow QR, the date and time, and then the exchange rate that they use to calculate your Malaysian ringgit price. Now, I get to enjoy my coffee purchased with the power of Touch ‘n Go. So, here I am at J.Co enjoying my snack purchased with the power of Touch ‘n Go in Indonesia. And I got an iced latte right there. It looks pretty good. And I ordered some kind of a sandwich right there. And they appear to have given me a complimentary doughnut to go along with it. Pro tip, fancy coffee shops like J.Co, they may or may not have the QRIS symbol out on display. In my experience so far, they tend not to. So, you basically have to go up to the cashier and look for all the little scanning machines, each one associated, I think, with a different bank or something like that and you ask them bisa QRIS and if they say yes you’re good to go. I use Touch ‘n Go to buy a simple lunch like ayam geprek at roadside eateries like this one. When you see a little place like this you can scan the outside of course to see what kind of food they make. They often have their food on display. And of course, they have a sign, so I know they make ayam geprek here. But you can also see the QRIS QR code here that you can scan. And when you see that symbol, you know that you can use Touch ‘n Go here.
So I did not go for ayam geprek. I just served myself.
And here they will just look at your meal and then they will tell you how much you need to pay. Bisa.
Okay. So here they have the code available right at the counter.
Okay.
So the total is 27,000 rupiah comes to 6.8 ringgit. Confirm it’s paying.
I need to authenticate again. And there we have it. Sending your money to RMJ&M. And okay. Okay. So, I showed the payment screen to the restaurant owner. He gave me the thumbs up and I’m good to go to enjoy my lunch. So, there you have it. Nothing could be easier. There’s my confirmed payment screen. And then my lunch. I got some egg, chicken, rice, eggplant. Pro tip for dining. When they bring you a little bowl like this filled with water, that’s not for drinking and it’s not a clear soup. That is meant for washing your hands, cleaning off your fingers because people here quite often eat with their hands. I use Touch ‘n Go to grab a burger from Burger Lah here in Banda Aceh. I’m told that they make the best burgers in the city. Let’s find out with the power of Touch ‘n Go.
Bisa QRIS.
So they have the Burger Lah QRIS sign right there. So I just hit the scan button on Touch ‘n Go and there. Now you have to enter the amount. It shows up here on the cash register.
44,000 rupiah which is 11 ringgit. Confirm. And the payment is going through.
Authenticate
Burger. And there you are. And here they take a picture of the transaction, the confirmation page. Okay. Terima kasih.
Thank you. And there we have it. The power of Touch ‘n Go. The best burger in town. So now I’m just waiting for my burger to show up. And pro tip, to be honest, there is no pro tip. That is my pro tip that everything associated with using Touch ‘n Go through the Indonesian QRIS system, especially in a place like this, is so smooth and so streamlined that it just works. If you know how to use Touch ‘n Go in Malaysia, you know how to use it here in Sumatra. So, no pro tip required. So, what has Touch ‘n Go brought me today? It brought me my Burger Lah. So there it is.
The egg, beef, cheese, and I’m not quite sure what all that is up on top. So there’s my burger. Comes with hot sauce. Kind of a nice presentation with the looks like old newspaper. Certainly comfortable in here. I like that they have that big mirror. Makes the place feel much much bigger than it actually is. You know, gives it a very roomy feeling.
M.
That is not bad.
I wasn’t expecting it to be this good. They have a sauce on there. The sauce gives it a really nice flavor
and the meat patty itself. That’s one of the nicer burgers I’ve had in a very long time. Burger Lah with the power of Touch ‘n Go. I use Touch ‘n Go here in the comfort of my hotel room to book tickets online. This is the website for the local soccer team here in Banda Aceh. You can see the name of the team up there. And they have a match coming up soon. So, I went to the website to see if I could buy a ticket. And down here at the bottom, you can see that their next game is coming up on November 24th, 8:30 at night. And you can buy tickets here. So, I’ll click on there. And that brings us to the page where we select the ticket we want. And there are VIP and regular seats. The VIP seats are 100,000 rupiah. Just as an example, let’s choose one ticket for VIP. You can see here it’s 100,000 rupiah. And then we continue to payment. First, you have to fill out your name and passport number, email address, and phone number. I’m not actually buying a ticket for this match tonight right now. I’m waiting to see what happens with the weather. So, I just filled in some random information here. The important part is down here where you pay for the ticket. And you can see that there is a QRIS label there. So, I can pay for the ticket using QRIS online. So, we click on buy now. And there you have it. Now we get a QRIS QR code that I can scan to make a payment and I can download the QRIS as well. And now to complete payment, I’ve opened up my Touch ‘n Go e-wallet. I just click on scan to open the scan window. And now all I need to do is scan the QR code on the website. And boom, there you have it. I can use the power of Touch ‘n Go to go online and purchase a ticket to attend a regional football match here in Banda Aceh in Indonesia. The other day I showed how I couldn’t use Touch ‘n Go at Indomaret, the local version of 7-Eleven. But don’t worry, I can use Touch ‘n Go at the local equivalent here at this tiny neighborhood shop.
Bisa QRIS bisa bisa. So, here at this shop, as you can see, very small local shop, and they have the QRIS logo for Melani Market, the QRIS QR code standard. So, I just click on the scan button.
This is Touch ‘n Go from Malaysia. Malaysia. Yeah. Yeah. Touch ‘n Go.
Yeah. One more time. Let’s try scan.
Anyway, sepuluh ribu.
Well, that was disappointing. And that does happen from time to time. They have the QRIS symbol there. They have the QR code. It looks exactly the same as everywhere else, but there’s something about the way they’ve implemented it that may be connected to a specific app, a specific bank. I don’t know. But occasionally, it doesn’t work. Pro tip, I heard from a lot of people in Malaysia that they don’t even carry money at all anymore. All they carry are cards and their phone. But pro tip, you should bring a little bit of cash with you all the time anyway because sometimes, DuitNow and QRIS, they’re just not talking to each other. So, bring a little bit of money so you can enjoy your iced coffee. I use Touch ‘n Go to get my favorite mie aceh bakso at a local place like this, Bakso Kotaraja. I came into this bakso restaurant just to have breakfast. I didn’t see a QRIS QR code sign out there. So, I assumed I couldn’t use it here. But after I placed my order, I just asked them bisa QRIS. And then the young woman here said, “Yeah, they accept QRIS payment.” So, we’re going to try that here. Here is my mie aceh bakso. Looks very tasty for a good breakfast. Now we just have to see whether the QRIS payment system works. So here they did say they have QRIS bisa QRIS and they show it to me on their phone and I’m going to scan their code.
Try again. Got a weak connection.
I got tak berjaya.
So I guess here at the bakso restaurant, that’s another example where it doesn’t always work that smoothly. When I was using Touch ‘n Go in Malaysia, I don’t think I ever had a problem. They had a code. I could scan it. It just worked. Here, there seemed to be a variety of issues that can crop up. That was a new one for me where it said it couldn’t do it because I had a weak connection, but I don’t know what that means because on my phone I could watch YouTube videos. I could surf the internet. I could check email. I could do anything I wanted to do. So, my connection was strong. But when I tried to scan their QR code, I got an error message saying there was a weak connection. And when I spoke to the restaurant clerk there at the beginning and said, “Bisa QRIS, it wasn’t automatic to her what I meant. She said to me, “Transfer.” I think she was going to show me some kind of a bank ID number and I would have to transfer to that number. But I showed her a QR code and then she pulled it up on her phone like, “Oh, that’s what you mean by?” So the QRIS system, even though it’s everywhere in Indonesia, perhaps here in Banda Aceh, it’s a bit of an exception where it hasn’t penetrated as fully as it has in places like Jakarta, Surabaya, Bali, these sorts of more urban places. The other day I used Touch ‘n Go to get coffee at a fancy modern coffee shop in a shopping mall, J.Co. But I also use Touch ‘n Go to get a cup of coffee at my local coffee shop, Baltik Coffee and Drinks.
Bisa QRIS.
Oh, okay. So, here at Baltik, they have the official QRIS code. Yep. So, I’m just going to scan it with Touch ‘n Go. Cross our fingers. No, this is another empty or unrecognized QR code. So, this one for me. Yeah. Tak bisa cash. Yeah. Let me try one more time.
I get the error message each time. I couldn’t speak on camera inside Baltik because of the music playing quite loudly in there. But again, it was another Touch ‘n Go QRIS failure. They have the QRIS system and they have a code. Everything looks good, but when I scan it with Touch ‘n Go, I just get an error message saying it’s an empty or unrecognized QR code. I don’t know what the problem is. But in these small places, that tends to happen a lot. But in the bigger stores, the more modern ones, it works much better. Pro tip though for getting a cup of coffee, this is a very much better place than the modern coffee shops inside the shopping mall. Much lower price, like half the price of what I pay in the modern coffee shops and better coffee. Come here instead. I even use Touch ‘n Go to pay for hotel rooms that I booked online through Agoda or Booking.com or Traveloka. And the reason I can do that is because Touch ‘n Go has a secret weapon. Through Touch ‘n Go, you can actually get a Touch ‘n Go Visa card. It is a Visa debit card that draws money directly from your e-wallet. So to be clear, this Touch ‘n Go Visa card is not a true credit card. You can’t buy things and then run up a bill that you pay at the end of the month. It’s more like a Visa debit card. So you can use it just like a credit card. You apply for it through the Touch ‘n Go app. Go to the main page. There’s a little button there says cards. Click on that. Takes you to the card page. And on the card page, they have the Touch ‘n Go card itself that you use in transportation in Malaysia. But there is also a virtual credit card, a Visa card. You fill out the form, apply for it, and as soon as it’s approved, you are given a virtual Visa card which has a credit card number, it has an expiry date, and it has a CCV. And once you have that information, you can just go on to Agoda, book a room, and then when you get to payment, you don’t scan a Touch ‘n Go QR code. You don’t scan a QRIS code. All you do is enter your Touch ‘n Go Visa card details like any other credit card that you’ve used in your life. The difference is rather than the room charge going on your credit card bill, the amount that your hotel room cost is deducted directly from your Touch ‘n Go e-wallet. Now, I don’t need to demonstrate how that works because if in your lifetime you’ve paid for something online with a credit card, you already know how to do it. You just take your Touch ‘n Go Visa card, enter the details online, the money is deducted from your e-wallet, and you’re done. Pro tip. Once you have your Touch ‘n Go virtual Visa card, you don’t even need a physical card to use it. You can just enter the information online and all of the information is in the Touch ‘n Go app. You just go to your Visa card, click on the button that says reveal details, and then the card, the virtual card turns around, and you can see the credit card number, the expiry date, and the CCV. All of that information is stored in the app itself. But if you did want to get a physical card, they can send you one of those as well. And I did. So, I actually got the Touch ‘n Go Visa card and with this you can now pay using Visa Paywave in stores and you can withdraw money from ATMs. Just remember that the money you’re trying to withdraw has to already be in your Touch ‘n Go account because when you withdraw money from an ATM using your Touch ‘n Go Visa card, it is being taken directly from your e-wallet. But how amazing is that?
I use the Touch ‘n Go Visa card to withdraw money from an ATM that comes directly from my Touch ‘n Go e-wallet.
It’s making good sounds. This is a BCA bank ATM by the way and I asked for 300,000 rupiah. So I got 300,000 my receipt
and I should get my card back. There you have it. Nothing could be easier. Poof. So, that worked out a lot better than I thought it would. Very smooth. All I had to do was insert my card, enter my PIN, choose a language, English, and then withdraw it from savings. I believe your Touch ‘n Go e-wallet is considered a savings account as far as ATMs are concerned. So, even though I’m using a Visa card to withdraw the money, you don’t choose credit card because it isn’t a true credit card. You choose savings. Pro tip with these Touch ‘n Go Visa cards, there is no number visible on the card itself. On the back, it has my name, but that’s all. So, this card, if you lose it, nobody has access to any information. Your credit card number, your expiry date, your CCV, all of that information is not printed on the card. It’s not on the front and it’s not on the back. You only see that information inside the Touch ‘n Go app, and that adds to security. Pro tip, your Touch ‘n Go Visa card requires a PIN and you set the PIN when you get the card in the mail. They mail it to your mailing address in Malaysia and it comes along with a piece of paper that has a QR code on it. You have to scan that code with your Touch ‘n Go app. That activates the card and as part of the activation process, you select a six-number PIN. Pro tip, a Touch ‘n Go Visa card combined with the Touch ‘n Go e-wallet is an extremely useful tool for travelers, particularly in an emergency. If you find yourself overseas and you cannot get money, you have no access to money, you can contact friends at home and they can send money to your e-wallet. As part of your Touch ‘n Go e-wallet, there is a special permanent QR code that people can scan and it allows them to send money directly into your e-wallet. Just make sure your friends and family have a copy of that QR code or you can send it to them on WhatsApp or in an email, anything like that. And in an emergency, perhaps your regular ATM card doesn’t work. You can’t withdraw money from your home bank account. They send money into your Touch ‘n Go e-wallet. The money shows up instantly. You go to an ATM with your Touch ‘n Go Visa card and you can withdraw cash right away directly from an ATM. I use Touch ‘n Go to buy entrance tickets for the museum. Aceh. There’s the pricing for children anak-anak 3,000 adults 5,000 and foreigners 15,000. Satu satu mana Canada Canada bisa QRIS okay you have yeah to pay this is a QRIS okay so here at the museum at they have a QRIS symbol and I’m going to pay with an e-wallet lima belas ribu lima belas ribu so to pay using QRIS just hit the Touch ‘n Go. We’ll see whether they have the international like cross-border version or not. Scan.
Yep. So far so good. 15,000. Make sure you don’t type in too many zeros. Check the ringgit 3.8. Confirm. And you have 5 seconds to cancel the payment if you made a mistake and then authenticate. And there we go. We’re sending your money to Museum Aceh. Money successfully sent. Jadi. Ah, you have it. Excellent. Okay. Ticket terima kasih. So there you have it. You can use your Touch ‘n Go e-wallet to pay for a ticket at Museum Aceh. I use Touch ‘n Go to get an iced coffee at the history cafe and restaurant at the Aceh Museum. Hello. Hello. How are you? What can I get for you today? A coffee. Maybe a sanger ice. Do you want a sanger ice? Yeah. Bisa QRIS bisa bisa QRIS. So they have the QRIS symbol here. So I just need to scan that and it works. 23,000 23,000
ribu.
So 23,000 confirm. You have 5 seconds to cancel.
Authenticate. And we’re sending your money to History Coffee Museum.
Okay, thank you very much.
So, there we have it. Again, nothing could be easier. They have the code right on the counter and I could scan it and paid for my ice sanger coffee and they gave me a little buzzer to tell me when my drink is ready. I use Touch ‘n Go to pay for a Grab car to take me from my hotel to the tsunami museum here in Banda Aceh.
Pegi.
Yeah. Museum Tsunami. Museum Tsunami.
Terima kasih.
Bisa. QRIS. QRIS.
So, oh, he does have the QRIS system. So, yeah, he has it on his phone. Yeah. So, I open Touch ‘n Go authenticate. So, I scan his code and there we are. Just scan it. And then it comes up with the amount in ringgit and Indonesian rupiah. And I confirm payment. Pay authenticate with my thumbprint. We’re sending your money to Grab Transport. It says yes in internet. Okay. Money successfully sent. Success. Okay. There you go. And then you get the confirmation page. Okay. Thank you. Okay, sir. There we go. It’s all done. Thank you.
There goes my Grab driver somewhere behind me. Nothing could be easier. In this case, he had the QRIS code on his phone. So, I scan the code and the amount automatically came up in the payment window on Touch ‘n Go, which is very convenient. You don’t have to fumble around on the Grab app like you forget how much the fare was. He forgets you have to scroll window, where do you see how much to pay? It’s all automatic through the Touch ‘n Go e-wallet when it connects to Grab QRIS. Yeah, nothing could be easier. Very important pro tip. If you want to pay with Touch ‘n Go, when you hire a Grab car or a Grab motorcycle, you have to choose QRIS Payment in the app before you book the ride. So, when you’re busy putting in your destination and your pickup point, down at the bottom of the window, there’s a button that says cash because it defaults to cash, I believe. So, you have to click on the word cash. That opens up a payment window. At the very top, you see the QRIS option with a little bubble that you can select. So, you choose QRIS. It gives you a little window to confirm a very friendly, nice graphic kind of window that you are choosing to pay for your ride using an e-wallet via the Indonesian QRIS system. You hit the button there and now you’re good to go. And in this case, I noticed the driver didn’t know that I had chosen QRIS. He turned to me expecting me to hand him cash, which is what most drivers would do. But then I had to say to him, “Bisa QRIS, can I pay with QRIS?” And then he went, “Oh, oh.” And then he looked at his phone and he instantly called up the QRIS QR code. I could scan it and it was all done. But that’s the important point. You have to choose to pay by QRIS before you book the ride. If you don’t, you can’t pay with QRIS after that. Then you’re locked into paying with cash.
I use Touch ‘n Go to buy a ticket for the museum that is essentially a giant ship that was brought inland during the tsunami in Banda Aceh and deposited on the land. Rather than drag it back to the ocean, they turned it into a museum. So here is the ticket window for this museum. And I can see from a distance they have the QRIS QR code right there in the window. Hi. Hello. Good morning. Good morning. Satu satu saja. Only one. Only one. Do you use QR? Yes. Yes. Bisa. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So opening Touch ‘n Go scan and
just scanned their QR code.
Confirm. And I have 5 seconds to cancel the payment.
We’ll see if it goes through. Authenticate.
There we go. We’re sending your money to ticket PLTD Apung. Yeah. Money successfully sent. Okay. Okay. That is it. Okay. So, there you have it. Nothing could be easier. Though this time there was a little bit of a trick. The ticket price was actually 10,000 rupiah which is less than one ringgit and the system would not let me pay that much. It’s a minimum of like 4,000 rupiah. So, I just paid an extra 1,000. So, a total of one ringgit. But there you go. Paying for a museum ticket with the power of Touch ‘n Go.
Okay. Thank you.
There you go.
I use Touch ‘n Go to get a Friday morning coffee at my new neighborhood riverside coffee shop. This place is called Solomon Coffee and it’s right on the river. There’s a beautiful riverside area right outside there. I’m inside the cafe. It’s packed this morning. Lots of people come here to use their Wi-Fi, plug in their laptops to the electrical outlets and get work done. I came here to relax, enjoy the local atmosphere and enjoy my traditional sanger coffee which came to my table right there. I enjoyed my coffee and now it’s time to pay with the power of Touch ‘n Go. And over here at the payment counter, I spotted a QRIS QR code right here. So, I think I’ll be able to pay using Touch ‘n Go. Let’s give this a try.
Bisa QRIS
Sanger sanger,
sepuluh ribu. Sepuluh ribu, so my bill is 10,000 rupiah he said. And there is the QR code. We open Touch ‘n Go as normal. Scan their code
and it opened up. So this is Solomon Jpeg Coffee. Sepuluh ribu
10,000 rupiah 2.5 ringgit. Confirm. Payment is going through.
Authenticate.
And they’re sending my money to Solomon.
Money successfully sent. And there you are. All done.
And here they take a picture of your Thank you.
And there you have it. Nothing could be easier. Traditional sanger coffee at this amazing coffee shop as you can see by the river. This whole thing, the experience and the coffee brought to you with the power of Touch ‘n Go.
I use Touch ‘n Go to buy data packages for my Telkomsel SIM card when I’m running out of data. My current data package still has 600 megabytes, but it expires in just a couple of hours. So, I need to buy a new data package. And I’m doing it with two phones. This phone has my Telkomsel SIM card and this phone has my Touch ‘n Go e-wallet. So, it’s a pretty simple process. Click on buy packages. Select the package you want. I already know in advance I want this one. 7 days 3 gigabytes for 15,000 rupiah. Click on buy.
Brings you to the page that describes your package. There’s a buy button down at the bottom. Click on that.
And now you select your payment method. I could pay from my Telkomsel balance, but today I want to pay directly with my Touch ‘n Go e-wallet. So, I look for the QRIS symbol right here, QRIS. That’s the Indonesian national payment platform. I select QRIS, hit pay, and the system will produce a QR code for me to scan. There it is.
Open Touch ‘n Go. Then I click on the scan button. Scan the QR code.
And there you have it. So there’s my Touch ‘n Go confirm payment window. 3.79 ringgit. The equivalent of 15,000 Indonesian rupiah being paid through the Malaysian DuitNow QR system which connects to Indonesian QRIS. Hit pay. You have to authenticate and they’re sending my money to my Telkomsel account and it tells me that 3.79 ringgit has been deducted and you get the payment confirmation page. Now I can go back to Telkomsel. I’m done with this QR code. I don’t need it anymore. So I can just back out of here. Go back to the homepage. And on the homepage, I don’t know how long it will take, but if I refresh the page, at some point we’ll see my new data. There it is. 3 GB has been activated. So now I have 3.6 GB.
And there you have it. Nothing could be easier buying a Telkomsel data package with the power of Touch ‘n Go. Pro tip, if you’re ever in a very dark environment and your phone has difficulty scanning the QR code, Touch ‘n Go thought of that and on the scanning window, there is a built-in flashlight button. You’re following the normal procedure and you want to scan a QR code in a very dark place. Hit scan, but then it’s not working. But if you notice here at the bottom of the scan window, there is a little symbol of a flashlight. And if you click on that, it will turn on. You see it turned on the light on my phone. And then you can aim the light at the QR code. It will brighten it and then your phone will be able to scan it. When I have a headache, a cold, or I feel sick in some way, I use Touch ‘n Go to come to the pharmacy and buy some medicine.
So here is your basic display of Panadol. This is Panadol for cold and flu. I’m going to get one package of that. And over here is Panadol extra strength which I think is just meant for headaches. So I’m going to get these two items and see if I can pay with the power of Touch ‘n Go.
Can I help you? Mhm. Just this
bisa QRIS QRIS. So yes. So they do use QRIS here. So I just open Touch ‘n Go.
And they have a special machine here that prints out the QRIS code on a receipt. So you can scan it on the receipt or on the screen. So I just scan the screen. And there you have it. 7.8 ringgit, 30,000 rupiah for Kimia Farma. Yes. Hit the pay button. Authenticate and we’re sending your money to Kimia Farma QMC. And the machine is happy. It beeped. Success. Payment went through. Okay.
Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. And there you have it. Nothing could be easier if I had a headache or a bad cold. I can feel better with some medicine that I purchased with the power of Touch ‘n Go from the Kimia Farma Apotek here in Indonesia.
And after all of those experiments, including one at this coffee shop right behind me on the riverbank, I think I can safely conclude that yes, absolutely yes, you can use the Touch ‘n Go e-wallet app here in Indonesia. For Malaysians in particular, I think it’s a no-brainer. If you are coming from Malaysia to Indonesia and you already have Touch ‘n Go on your phone, might as well use it here. I don’t think you need to get a local e-wallet. Touch ‘n Go will do just fine. And in those rare circumstances where it won’t work, you can just pay in cash at those times. For foreign visitors to Malaysia and to Indonesia, it’s a little bit more nuanced. If a foreign tourist goes to Malaysia first, I would absolutely recommend downloading the Touch ‘n Go app from the Google Play Store onto your phone, opening a Touch ‘n Go account, and then using it while you’re in Malaysia. I have a whole video all about that. You can check it out with the link in the description. And then if you already have the Touch ‘n Go app on your phone in Malaysia, well, and then your trip is taking you to Indonesia, you can just continue to use that e-wallet here in Indonesia. There are situations that I ran into where some of the smaller vendors, their QRIS system, their QR code system is not the newer kind. It’s more of a legacy QRIS that does not have cross-border options and then in those cases Touch ‘n Go won’t work. So it could be to your advantage to also download and install a local Indonesian e-wallet app such as GoPay from Gojek or Dana or one of the other local e-wallet apps. But to be honest, I don’t think you even need to. Even if you’re a foreign tourist coming from Malaysia and you have the Touch ‘n Go app already, just put money into your Touch ‘n Go app and then you can come to Indonesia and just continue using it just as you did back in Malaysia. Of course, if you’re coming to Indonesia directly and you’re not passing through Malaysia, then of course you wouldn’t even have the Touch ‘n Go app. And then when you landed here, you could just download one of the local e-wallet apps. But for anyone from Malaysia, anyone passing through Malaysia, and you end up with the Touch ‘n Go app on your phone, you can use it here in Indonesia without any problems at all. Nothing could be easier.