VIDEO DESCRIPTION:
I recently posted a video about my experiences using and testing a local Indonesian e-wallet by scanning QRIS codes. I chose the GoPay e-wallet, which is a part of the GoJek super app. I was curious to see how easy it was for a foreign visitor like me to use QRIS. And I wanted to show other foreign tourists and visitors how to do it.
That video got a lot of comments. I replied to each of them on the video itself. But I decided to sit down over coffee at my favorite Banda Aceh coffee shop and reply to a selection of the comments on camera. People corrected my mistakes in their comments, and they offered a lot of additional useful information. By replying to them on camera, I hope everyone can benefit from their input.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Good morning and welcome back to Planet Doug, and today I’m going to be replying to your comments. I recently posted a video about using QRIS and e-wallets here in Banda Aceh in Indonesia. You can see the thumbnail for the video up there in the corner. And I got a lot of comments on that video. I made some mistakes, and people left helpful comments correcting me. There were a lot of things that I didn’t cover in my video because I didn’t have time or I wasn’t even aware of these things, and people left a lot of comments pointing these out, things I wasn’t aware of, more information. And I really appreciate those comments, and I thought it would be very helpful to reply to them here on camera. I have all the comments queued up here on my tablet. I’m going to put them up on the screen, either down below or off to the side, and you can read along with me. I may or may not say the name of the person who left the comment, because YouTube has this weird system they’ve developed where a person has a very clear identifying name on their YouTube channel that they picked out, but when they leave a comment, YouTube uses this bizarre handle. Maybe I don’t know what it is, but it’s a very complicated kind of behind-the-scenes serial name and a serial number, and then reading those aloud is very difficult, and I probably won’t bother with most of them, but you’ll be able to see them up on the screen. So, let’s dive into them.
The first comment comes with a name that is a little bit clear, from Pandu Puan, and they write that the gotcha with QRIS is that there are two modes: MPM and CPM. MPM equals merchant-presented mode. CPM equals customer-presented mode. And then they go on to talk about that in detail. And that’s a very useful point, because that was one of the very first issues I ran into when I came to Banda Aceh, very excited to use an e-wallet, and I went into Indomaret. That was the very first place I went into, and it just wouldn’t work there. Everything was a little bit confusing, and part of the reason for that is that Indomaret uses CPM, customer-presented mode, and that means that me as the customer, I show them the QR code on my device, and they scan my code. So that’s customer-presented mode. The customer presents a QR code. The other way is much more common. That’s what most people are accustomed to: merchant-presented mode, or MPM. And that’s where the merchant shows the customer their QR code, and the customer scans their code. I hope that’s clear. And I remember coming across this in Malaysia as well, because I went to 7-Eleven and places like 99 Speedmart a lot in Kuala Lumpur, and at 7-Eleven in Kuala Lumpur, they also use CPM. So I’m accustomed to it. I knew that when I went into 7-Eleven, I had to show them my code. Almost everywhere else, they had to show me their code, right? So, it’s two opposite ways. And then using the GoPay app, there’s a different button you press. Like, when you click on the pay button, or in the GoPay standalone app, you click on the QRIS button, it opens up a scanner. So it defaults to merchant-presented mode. It defaults to the mode where you scan their code. But if they use the opposite system, then you have to press a second button so that you show them your code. And every e-wallet does this a little bit differently. So it’s very important to know about MPM versus CPM. You don’t have to remember the acronyms. You just have to remember: sometimes they scan your QR code, sometimes you scan their QR code. And you’ll come across both those situations.
Next, I have two comments about phone numbers. This is the biggest mistake that I made in the video. I said in one of my pro tips, and I said it very, very clearly, that in order to use an e-wallet, you need an Indonesian SIM card with an Indonesian phone number and mobile internet. And I was 100% wrong about that. I wish I could remove it from the video at this point, but maybe I can using the YouTube system. I don’t know. But anyway, I made a mistake. And two people helped me out in the comments. The first comment: you do not need Indonesian SIM card. Very clear and to the point. Comment number two: I just signed up with an Austrian phone number. It seems having an Indonesian phone number is not mandatory. So that turns out to be true. I made the mistake because I came from Malaysia, where I was using the Touch ‘n Go e-wallet. And in Malaysia, Touch ‘n Go is more restrictive. So there, back when I did it—I opened my account years ago—I had to have a Malaysian phone number. That was the only way to do it. They wouldn’t accept a Canadian phone number or an Austrian phone number. Touch ‘n Go has moved on a little bit now. You can now open up an account using a Malaysian phone number or from some other ASEAN countries—you know, a Malaysian phone number, Thai phone number, countries around Southeast Asia—but you still, for in Malaysia, you wouldn’t be able to use your home phone number. You have to have a local phone number, either Malaysian or neighboring countries. But here in Indonesia, turns out it’s more lenient. It’s easier. I was amazed when I opened up my GoPay account. I downloaded the app. I went through the steps. All I needed was just a phone number. It could be any phone number from anywhere in the world, just as long as it can receive OTP security codes. But you may not even need that, because you could also do it through WhatsApp. You could get your security code via WhatsApp. So you just needed a phone number and you needed an email address, and that’s it. You didn’t have to do anything else. No passport copy, no ID. You didn’t have to have a local phone number. You could use any phone number you want. So that was my mistake. So, with GoPay anyway—I don’t know about the other e-wallets in Indonesia, but I’m assuming they’re all more or less similar in this regard. You do not need an Indonesian phone number. You can use your home country phone number or a phone number from any country here in Asia or, yeah, anywhere in the world.
Next comment: any minimum amount to use it? And that’s an interesting question, and the answer, as far as I’m aware, is no. There really is no minimum amount. Someone else left another comment where they said the minimum amount is one rupiah. So I mean, if you have to enter at least one, all that means is you have to enter a number, but there’s no minimum number. Yeah, there were places—for example, one of my examples—I went to the local mosque, and they had a donation box where you store your shoes and sandals. I think I’ll be talking about that later. And when you scan their QR code, they automatically input 1,000 rupiah as your donation amount. It’s hardwired into the system. And where you’re from, 1,000 might sound like a lot. Like 1,000 Canadian, that’s a lot of money. But 1,000 rupiah is actually a very small amount of money. I think it’s about 6 cents US. So if you can go all the way down to 1,000 rupiah—I was able to make that donation. Yeah, there really is no minimum amount. It’d be very, very rare that you would ever use an e-wallet to pay 1,000 rupiah or anything anywhere near that. You know, at the lowest you’d probably go would be something like 5,000 or 3,000. But if I can go all the way down to 1,000 and it works, yeah, realistically there is no minimum amount.
Next comment: Hello sir, come to Jakarta and try to pay public transportation here like TransJakarta bus, KRL, LRT, MRT using QRIS. And that’s an interesting comment, because here in Banda Aceh it’s not possible. When I was in Malaysia using an e-wallet there, one of the biggest advantages for me was that I could use the Touch ‘n Go card, which is linked to the Touch ‘n Go e-wallet. So I could use the card to just go through all the subway systems, all the train systems, all the bus systems. And it was an incredibly convenient thing for me. Here in Banda Aceh, you can’t use QRIS to get on the buses. They have a different system here where you use a money card, a cash card. You scan in and scan out using that card, but it’s not connected to an e-wallet. So I’m not able to use my GoPay e-wallet. I’m not able to use QRIS here to ride on the buses. But it sounds like in other cities in Indonesia—Jakarta, for example—it is possible. So that would be another big benefit to using an e-wallet: that you don’t use it just for paying for food, for coffee, for medicine, all these things. You can also use it to ride on the buses and on the subway systems. So yeah, that would be a big advantage, but not here in Banda Aceh yet. But apparently you can do it in Jakarta.
Now, I have three related comments, all about the same topic, more or less. And I’m going to start off with the comment from my good friend Wander Eats. Wander Eats writes, “By the way, I do know a few travelers who will never use e-wallets for one particular reason. They don’t like to have any balance left over anywhere as they feel it’s wasted money.” And I know exactly what he’s talking about. Let’s say, for example, you put 500,000 rupiah on your e-wallet and you’re using it, but then you come to the end of your holiday and you’re going to the airport, but you still have 300,000 left. You haven’t spent it yet. And then if you leave Indonesia, what happens to that money? I mean, you lose it, right? So a lot of people wouldn’t want to use an e-wallet because they would worry about, well, what happens to my balance when I leave the country and I don’t spend it all. So that’s a very reasonable concern. But then came two more comments from the next person. If we are in a hurry and need money, we can also go to the store and ask for it using QRIS. So what they’re saying is you can withdraw money from your e-wallet. So you could go to Indomaret and withdraw cash from your e-wallet. Next comment says the same thing. It’s a much longer comment, but down towards the bottom you see they write, you can transfer the remaining funds in your e-wallet to your bank account or withdraw cash. So there is a solution to the problem that Wander Eats raised, where there is the option of just withdrawing that money. If, according to my example, I had 300,000 rupiah left in my e-wallet and I’m leaving the country, well, I can go to Indomaret and withdraw that money, and they give it to me in cash, and now my balance goes down to zero or near zero as I can get it. And you could probably do that at the airport, right? You go to the airport, you still have money in your e-wallet. You can spend some of it—maybe you need some candy, some mints, a bottle of water. You know, you can use your e-wallet at the airport, and then whatever is left over, look for an Indomaret or some other shop, and then you go into the system and then you withdraw the money. Personally, I wouldn’t wait until I got to the airport to do that, because you don’t know whether it’s going to work or not. Maybe you can’t find an Indomaret, or that Indomaret isn’t capable of doing it. I would do it the day before going to the airport, you know, just in case. But there is that possibility. There are a couple of tricks to the system. I investigated this a little bit because I thought, “Wow, that is really, really cool.” So I went into the Gojek super app, which is what I’ve been using, because the GoPay e-wallet is built into Gojek. It’s part of Gojek. So I went into Gojek and I was looking for this feature. Where is it? But I didn’t see it. But deep in the menu, I found an item called cash out. You know, I really love that phrase. It’s like you’re in Las Vegas and you’ve got all your chips, all your money, but you got all these chips, and you cash out your chips. You bring them to the window, hand in your chips, and you get money. So there is a button called cash out. But when you click on cash out, it says you can only do this in the GoPay app. So you can’t do this directly from Gojek, the super app. You have to download the standalone GoPay e-wallet app, and there it’s clearly marked withdraw money. So what you do is click on withdraw, and then you pick where—I think you pick Indomaret—and then you say how much you want to withdraw, 300,000 rupiah or 200,000, and then you go into Indomaret and show them the barcode. They scan the code, they process, they give you the money, and there is a small fee involved. So Indomaret charges a tiny, a small fee for that service. But anyway, it is possible to withdraw money from your e-wallet if you need to. And when you’re leaving the country, in theory, you can withdraw all of your money, effectively bringing your balance down to zero. So yeah, that’s a great feature. And just to add to that, this last commenter with the long comment—he gives a lot of useful information there. I just want to acknowledge that. So for example, at the very end, they also write, “As for phone numbers, you can use any number from any supported country, though the default is plus 62 for Indonesia.” So they’re just confirming that you don’t have to have an Indonesian phone number. You can use phone numbers from other supported countries, and it sounds like most of them are supported.
I was really happy to see these next two comments because they covered something that I was completely unaware of. I didn’t even know this existed, and I haven’t even had the time to investigate it myself yet, but it’s very, very cool. So the first comment is coming from Tom Cam. And I know Tom Cam—I had the privilege of meeting him in person one time. So Tom Cam, he’s an expert in all things Indonesian. He wrote: latest topic, QRIS Tap. Maybe you check this out. GoPay, ShopeePay, and many bank apps have it. So he’s talking about something called QRIS Tap. Next comment about the same topic: We can use QRIS Tap NFC pay from QRIS for commuting. We need tap in at the entrance and tap out at the exit. Nowadays, we don’t need e-money card for public transportation. We can use QRIS, but I don’t know if Aceh already implemented it or not. So, going back to Tom’s comment, he’s telling me, “Yeah, check out QRIS Tap.” And I saw that comment. What the heck is QRIS Tap? I had no idea. So I did some investigating, and again, from what I can tell, QRIS Tap is not available in Gojek in the super app, and that’s what I was using all through my video examples. But QRIS Tap is built into GoPay. But the only way you can use it is to download the separate standalone GoPay app, and then there is an option called QRIS Tap. And you know, it’s exactly what it sounds like. Like normally to use GoPay, you have to open the app, click on pay, scan the QR code, enter the amount, confirm it, go through all these steps. And with QRIS Tap, you don’t have to do any of that. If the merchant has the appropriate EDC or scanner or whatever these things are called, you can just select QRIS Tap, and then you tap your phone. I mean, you’re bypassing the QR code completely, which to me is kind of mind-blowing. Like, the whole thing about these new systems for me is going around the convenience of scanning QR codes to pay, and now we’ve got QRIS Tap, which is using the QR code network but it’s bypassing your need to actually physically scan. Now you can use GoPay e-wallet directly through your phone just by tapping, which I assume means you don’t actually whack your phone—you hold your phone against the scanner with NFC turned on. Just beep, you’re done. And I don’t know how it works yet. Like, I don’t know if it’s automatic—the payment just goes—or do you have to confirm it when you do it? I plan on doing my own testing, but I haven’t had time to do that. But anyway, that is QRIS Tap. I hadn’t heard of it, didn’t know anything about it. So yeah, these comments filled in a big blank spot in my experience and a big blank spot in my video. I really should have included this in my video, but I didn’t know about it. So thank you to those two commenters. Oh, just a quick follow-up for the second commenter. He’s talking about how they don’t need to use the e-money card anymore, but he doesn’t know what the situation is in Aceh. And what he’s talking about there is one of these. So this is what they call a money card, an e-money card, cash card. This has nothing to do with QR code or QRIS. This is a whole separate technology. You top up this card, and you mainly use it in transportation. So you use this to tap in on buses or subway systems, things like that. And this commenter is saying that in places like Jakarta, this is now outdated. You don’t even need to use this anymore. You can do the same thing using your e-wallet by tapping. You can tap this, or you can tap using your e-wallet. Either one. But here in Banda Aceh on the buses, no—for the buses here, they haven’t implemented QRIS yet, as far as I’m aware. To be honest, I never asked specifically, but I was told I had to get one of these cards to use the buses in Banda Aceh.
Now, I’ve got seven comments that are all dancing around the same topic. Basically, they’re talking about just how useful QRIS is and how widely accepted the system is now in Indonesia. And yeah, I’ll go through the comments very quickly here. First one: since QRIS has been around, I’m not too worried about not bringing cash when I want to shop, hang out at a coffee shop, or make payments online or offline. QRIS has made life quite easy. So, a ringing endorsement for QRIS. Thank you, Uncle Doug. You show us how easy using QRIS is. And the cow sound was really hilarious. By the way, yeah, in my video—for whatever reason, I didn’t plan it that way—but every time I went to a store to demonstrate buying something with QRIS, I just ended up buying a carton of milk because I love milk so much. And I didn’t realize I did it, but I bought milk over and over, and I put in the mooing of a cow sound effect. I thought it was funny. So someone found it funny. Next comment: Yes, QRIS digital payment is widely used in Aceh for payment in coffee shops, mom-and-pop stores, Indomaret, Alfamart, museum tickets, hospitals, drugstores, etc., so widely accepted. In addition, most businesses accept QRIS now. It’s the standard payment method in Indonesia. Frankly, it’s genius stuff. Another comment: I’m Indonesian and almost never carry cash in my wallet. I pay using QRIS every day, and best of all, there are no deductions or fees. The fee is only charged for top-ups. Another comment: by using QRIS, you don’t have to worry about changing money, dirty banknotes, or counterfeit money. So those are some of the comments talking about that. And I just wanted to add a little bit to that topic from my perspective, because here in Aceh, yeah, you could go about your entire life and never have to use cash again. You could use QRIS to pay for everything, but it isn’t what I would call widely accepted. For example, you can use it at mom-and-pop stores here in Banda Aceh, but not at all of them. In fact, in my experience, only at a few of them. Most of them that I go to, I don’t see a QRIS symbol anywhere. And if I ask, can I pay with QRIS? They usually say no. But as I go around Banda Aceh, I look for the QRIS sign, the QRIS QR code. And if I see a mom-and-pop store that does accept QRIS, I go back there every time. So that becomes my go-to convenience store. But I had to look for it. Same thing with like local restaurants. Most of the local restaurants that I’ve been to, they don’t accept QRIS. Only a few of them do. But when I come across one, I remember it, and then I always go back to that one. Same thing with pharmacies. In my early days, I did experiments where I just saw pharmacies, and then I went into the pharmacy to buy some, you know, headache medicine or something, and they wouldn’t let me pay with QRIS. I had to pay with cash. But then I did a bit of research and I found one of the big chains—Kimia Farma—and I saw online it said Kimia Farma accepts QRIS. So that became my go-to pharmacy. Every time I need to buy something from a pharmacy, I go to Kimia Farma, and I make my purchase there, and I pay with an e-wallet. So most of the smaller local businesses that I’ve come across—like night markets, food stalls at the side of the street—they don’t, at least here in Banda Aceh, they don’t accept QRIS yet. But if you look for places that do accept it, you can slowly build them into your life and just go to those places, and then you can only use, you know, if you want to, you can use only an e-wallet and never have to use cash. But here in Banda Aceh, you’ve got to work at it a little bit. I haven’t been to Jakarta ever since I discovered e-wallets, so I don’t know what it’s like there. My only point of comparison is Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. And in Kuala Lumpur, yes, absolutely—it would be a valid statement. You can use it everywhere. I mean, I would go to a night market in Kuala Lumpur, like a once-a-week night market, and there might be 200 individual tiny food stalls, food carts, and every single one of them would accept Touch ‘n Go. Like all of them, end to end. Every store I go to would accept Touch ‘n Go everywhere I went. So it was widely accepted all over Kuala Lumpur compared to Banda Aceh. There’s a really big difference. So QRIS hasn’t penetrated the market here in Banda Aceh nearly to the extent that it has in Kuala Lumpur. And from the comments I’m seeing to my video, you could probably draw the same parallel with Jakarta, the big cities on Java, or maybe Bali. Maybe there you can use QRIS like everywhere. That would be a fair statement. But here in Banda Aceh, not yet. You got to work at it a little bit. And you have to find the places that accept QRIS and then remember where they are. Before I leave this topic, I’m going to zip through the comments that I just read and look for little details that I need to hit a little bit more. So one person points out you can make payments online, and that is a key point where that is another huge advantage to QRIS. Like even if my local night market—there may not be that many vendors here in Banda Aceh that accept QRIS—but that’s more than made up for by the fact that you can use it online on the internet to pay for so many things. That’s an important point. And someone else says, “As an example, you can use QRIS to buy museum tickets.” And that’s true, but not all the time. I’ve been to three museums in Banda Aceh, and the Aceh Museum, the history cultural museum—they accepted QRIS. The PLTD Apung ship, that museum—they accepted QRIS. But oddly enough, the Tsunami Museum, the biggest, most well-known museum for foreigners anyway—they didn’t accept QRIS. That was cash only. So even for museums, sometimes they accept QRIS, sometimes they don’t. And as someone wrote, they say it’s the standard payment method in Indonesia. I wouldn’t go that far. Not in Banda Aceh. I would say in Banda Aceh cash is still the standard. You know, QRIS is catching up, and I think QRIS is going to take over everywhere eventually, but for now in Banda Aceh cash is still the most popular. QRIS is catching up, but then they do say, frankly it’s genius stuff, and there I agree, because I love QRIS and e-wallets. And then a couple of people point out some advantages to using QRIS where you don’t have to bring a lot of money with you. So that reduces the chance of being hit by a pickpocket who steals your wallet and all your money. And you don’t have to worry about changing money, dirty banknotes—a lot of them are quite old and dirty here in Indonesia—or you don’t have to worry about counterfeit money. And there’s one more huge advantage to QRIS that I didn’t even think of—never occurred to me. I didn’t mention it in my video, and someone pointed it out in a comment, and we’ll get to that towards the end.
Another very popular topic in the comments was topping up your e-wallet. I did talk about that in my video, and I talked about how, as a foreigner, the easiest—and for me to be honest, the only way I was aware of that I could top up my e-wallet—was to do it through a store. So I had to go to Indomaret, give them cash, and then they would put that money into my e-wallet. That is how I topped up. And I talked about it as being the most convenient way for a foreigner to do it and maybe even the only way. But as a lot of people pointed out, I’m probably wrong about that too. It’s just that I kind of missed the credit card revolution that went on in North America and I think in Europe. I’d left Canada a long time ago, and back when I was young—I mean, I was born in an era when a credit card was like, whoa, credit card was really something special. And only rich people had credit cards, kind of thing. But now it seems like everyone in Canada has like 10 different credit cards, and they use it for everything. So instead of e-wallets with QR codes developing in Canada, everybody’s wallet is just bristling with credit cards, and they connect their credit card to their phone. So they go to 7-Eleven, they’re just like buying a carton of milk, and they just beep with their phone, and it goes onto their credit card bill or something like that. I don’t even know how it works. But anyway, I just don’t know much about credit cards. I don’t use them. But other people—much smarter people than me—left some comments asking questions about topping up involving credit cards, things like that. So first comment from the great Wander Eats, my friend in Malaysia. He writes, “Great and informative coverage of QRIS, buddy. I think it may be even more comprehensive than your earlier TNG video. LOL.” Thank you. “By the way, since you mentioned credit and debit card top-up, have you tried topping up your GoPay e-wallet using your TNG Visa card?” And that’s a very important question, because I actually—I have technically a credit card with me here. I have the Touch ‘n Go e-wallet from Malaysia, and one of the products they provide is an actual Visa card. It’s like a Visa card, like a prepaid Visa card. And then Daryl from Wander Eats, he says, “Oh, have you tried topping up with that?” And I thought, “Huh, let me give that a try.” So as I wrote to Daryl in my reply—I replied online already—I tried it out. I went into my GoPay e-wallet, and it said top-up, and underneath top-up it said, yeah, enter your credit card details. So I thought, oh amazing. So I entered all the details. They actually confirmed my card—like they charged 1,000 ringgit to my card and then removed it again just to confirm that the card was valid. So and they accepted it. My card was added to my e-wallet. But then when I went to top up, it said no, can’t do it. It says credit cards cannot be used for top-up. That’s what GoPay told me. So that’s what I told Wander Eats in my reply. Yes, I did try the Touch ‘n Go Visa card. Didn’t work. I can’t top up with a credit card. But then next comment: to top up QRIS e-wallet if you’re coming from the US, just use Wise—link your US bank account payment and just send the money to e-wallet. So again, this is something I don’t know anything about, because I’ve never been able to get a Wise card or open a Wise account. I don’t have one. And I spoke with this commenter—we went back and forth in the comments a little bit—because they were saying, “Oh, just use Wise.” But when I went into GoPay into the top-up section, Wise wasn’t listed. It’s not there as an option. So I can’t use Wise. But what they’re saying is no, you don’t do it that way. You don’t start in your e-wallet and then select Wise. You begin in Wise. And from Wise, you can send money. And you can send money anywhere in the world. You can send it to a bank account, and you can send it to an e-wallet. So what this commenter does is they open up their Wise account, send money, and they choose their e-wallet in Indonesia as the recipient of that money, and then Wise sends it and it tops up their QRIS e-wallet. I don’t know which one they’re using though, I think. But anyway, so that is an option. But as I said, it’s not listed in GoPay where you start in Wise and send the money to the e-wallet. So that’s a very interesting way to do it. Another comment: actually, you don’t need to top up your e-wallet because you can use QRIS directly through your bank’s mobile app. So this is probably—yeah, I’m an Indonesian person—and I did get a lot of comments talking about banking apps and suggesting that I do it this way, do it that way using a banking app. There might be more comments saying the same thing. But for a tourist, yeah, that’s not a possibility, because we don’t have local bank accounts. So we don’t have banking apps. But many Indonesians, they do everything I do—they go everywhere scanning QR codes using QRIS—but they’re not doing it through an e-wallet. They’re doing it through a banking app. And then if it’s connected directly to their bank account, they don’t even have to have a balance, right? Because they scan the QR code, and the money is deducted automatically from their bank account. So, you know, if so, whatever—you know, abracadabra—you don’t even need to top up your e-wallet. Just use your banking app, and the money is deducted automatically. But I can’t do that as a foreign tourist. Maybe you can open a bank account here in Indonesia as a foreigner—I never tried—but for someone coming here, say, for a one-month holiday, they probably wouldn’t want to go to that much trouble: open a bank account, deposit money, get the banking app. They wouldn’t do it. They would just use an e-wallet like I’m doing. Anyway, a very interesting comment. I linked my Amex Gold credit card to Dana with a US phone number and it worked. No top-up and local number needed. Of course, there might be a downside to doing it that way that I don’t know about, but it’s possible. So what they’re referring to is Dana, which is another Indonesian e-wallet. So I’m using GoPay and Gojek. And as I said, when I tried to use a credit card to top up GoPay, I got a very clear message that said, “No, you cannot use a credit card to top up GoPay.” But this commenter, they were using a different e-wallet called Dana, and they were able to top it up—well, they said they linked their American Express credit card to Dana, and they used an American phone number. So yeah, no top-up. Because I guess in their case, maybe what they’re saying is they’re not even topping up their e-wallet from their credit card. They’re not even bothering with top-ups, because their credit card is linked to Dana—every time they scan a QR code with Dana, the charge just goes to their credit card. I think that’s what they’re saying. Yeah, I can’t do that. Or yeah, I don’t think I can do that. Or maybe I can. I’m reading their comment in a new way now. Like I said, in GoPay I couldn’t top up my account with a credit card, but maybe I can have it deduct money automatically from that credit card or charge it to that credit card automatically, just like they’re doing with Dana. I’ll have to test that. But off the top of my head, I don’t know. So those are some comments about topping up. And that’s a very interesting topic, and it’s very important to anyone like a foreigner coming to Indonesia or to Malaysia, and they hear about these amazing e-wallets, and they’re all excited and download an e-wallet, open an account, and then they’re like, “Oh, how do I put money into it? How do I top it up?” And I got a lot of interesting comments about that topic.
Next comment: Another tip. You don’t even have to remember “bisa,” which means can. Just say QRIS with a question mark, and you can go from there. Next comment, which is related: I think asking “bisa QRIS” fits when you don’t see that QRIS display at the counter, just like in the drugstore. The QRIS code would be printed via EDC machine. But if you see one, they’re saying if you see a QRIS sign, a QR code—the better way is picking the option to pay with it. Saying “bayar pakai QRIS” means I’m paying with QRIS. Okay. Also, sometimes the cashier asked which bank you used with your QRIS payment—just in the example, “pakai bank apa” or “dari bank apa”—and you just answer with the app you use. So that’s relating to my discussion of, as a foreigner, how do you know whether you can use QRIS or not in a particular store. As I said, it’s not obvious here in Banda Aceh, and I said you just say “bisa QRIS,” you know, can I use QRIS. And the first commenter saying you don’t even have to use the word “bisa.” Just say QRIS, like QRIS? That’s all. You just have to remember the word QRIS, and that’s good enough. And you just walk in and then hold up your phone maybe and just go QRIS? May I use QRIS? So it’s very, very easy. And the next commenter, Freethinker, is diving into the topic a little bit deeper and basically saying, well, if you don’t see a QRIS sign, then you can ask “bisa QRIS,” like, can I use QRIS here? But if you see a QRIS sign, then you can just sort of make it more of a statement, like I’m going to pay with QRIS. Is that okay? Rather than a question. And I guess in Indonesian—I don’t know the pronunciation—you would say “bayar pakai QRIS,” ya? In question mark. In Indonesian, “ya” is a very useful word. It’s like a questioning word. So yeah, you can use it to say it that way. And as this commenter pointed out—I didn’t pick up on it because I don’t know Indonesian—but sometimes when I went into some stores, they asked me something in Indonesian. I said “bisa QRIS.” And instead of them saying yes, they asked me a follow-up question. And I didn’t really pick up what they said, but I guess what they’re saying is okay, which app are you using? Which banking app? Which e-wallet? And then I’m supposed to reply, oh, I’m using GoPay. So that’s how that interaction goes.
An interesting security-related comment. Freethinker writes, “I’m kind of skeptical for that QRIS in that donation box. What if that QRIS sticker just put up there by some random people?” And in the video I give an example where I’m at a mosque, and they had a donation box, and on the donation box there were QRIS stickers, and you scan the QRIS code, and then you can make a donation that way. And I also did it with a charity on a big sign. They had a QRIS code for that charity. And yeah, I mean, to deal with that I guess it’s just applying common sense. Like for example, if I’m walking down the street and I see a QRIS code just slapped on a brick wall or on a telephone pole, yeah, I’m not going to scan that code and send that person money, ’cause who knows who put that sticker up there. But if you’re inside the mosque, in the mosque grounds—you went through a security gate, and it’s in an official building with people there clearly monitoring that area—they know what’s going on, and yeah, you have a good feeling, okay, this is a legitimate QR code. And then of course you can examine the QR code. I don’t think this is as common as a lot of people like to think, but it’s possible. It’s feasible that some nefarious person goes around with their own QR code and covers up other QR codes. Basically, they put a fake one on top of the real one, and then everybody sends money to them thinking it’s going somewhere else. I think that’s pretty rare, but it has happened. So you basically look at the QR code sticker or the poster or the sign, and you make sure it hasn’t been tampered with—there aren’t fake ones plastered on top. I think you can see whether they did it or not. Plus the last common sense thing you can do, of course, is after you scan the QR code, you’ll get a confirmation window. And the confirmation window will list the name of the business, the name of the person. And then you just have to make sure that name is legitimate and it matches where you are. So I don’t worry that much about fake QR codes. Just apply a little bit of common sense, and I think you’ll be okay.
Not exactly a comment about QRIS, but I like the comment. They write, “Spending money is easy. Show us how to make it.” Valid point. And I kind of did feel that way when I was making this video. Because earlier I made a similar video for Touch ‘n Go in Malaysia, and I made a video about Touch ‘n Go in Indonesia, and then I’m now making a GoPay video in Indonesia. And I wanted to use a lot of examples—like real-life examples—of me using an e-wallet to scan QR codes. But to do that you got to buy something, you know. And I’m not generally a big buyer. I’m not out there just buying stuff, you know. I’m not out there buying souvenirs to take home. I’m a low-budget YouTuber—extreme low-budget in many, many ways. So it was kind of funny that for a long time every morning I woke up with the goal of spending money. How can I spend money today? But of course what I tried to do was incorporate it into my real life. I wasn’t spending money that I wouldn’t normally spend. I love to go to museums, but every time I went to the museum, instead of paying for the ticket with cash, I tried to pay with a QR code. If I wanted to have lunch, I’d look for a restaurant where I don’t have to pay cash. I’m having lunch, which I would have anyway, and then I pay for it with QRIS, on and on. But there were definitely areas where I did things I wouldn’t normally do. So for example, I wanted to include a segment where I used QRIS at a fast food restaurant. And I talk about this at length in my behind-the-scenes video, my storytelling video, which should already be up on the channel. Because in those cases—because there was no mobile internet—the transaction failed again and again and again. Not because QRIS wouldn’t work, but because I didn’t have any internet. So I didn’t want to go to KFC. I didn’t want to go to McDonald’s. I didn’t want to take a Grab car to McDonald’s. But I kept doing that over and over because I wanted a segment of fast food using QRIS. So I went to KFC three times in total just so I could get video of using an e-wallet. And I would normally not do that. I went to McDonald’s just so I could use QRIS. I took a Grab car all over the place paying for a Grab car. But I wouldn’t normally do that—I would normally walk or take the bus. And I was only doing it for the video. So it did start to feel like I was turning into Mr. Moneybags, and every morning I’m, how can I spend money today? You know, scan, scan, scan, scan, scan, and I’m buying all these things. And yeah, that’s kind of a funny comment from that point of view. I bought so many cartons of milk just for the e-wallet, but of course I buy a lot of milk anyway. It’s like my number one daily purchase is a carton of milk. Anyway, but this person says, “Well, that’s easy. Anybody can spend money. Can you show us how to make it?” And there, I must admit, I’m a total failure. I have no idea how to make money. I am the worst at making money. My whole life I’ve always been that way. So yeah, I can’t do it. If I could make a video how to make money, I wouldn’t bother making that video. I’d just be out there making money by myself. I don’t know how.
Now, I have a comment from Som Luck, and Som Luck has been very active in the comments to this video, and we’ve been chatting back and forth quite a bit. And I think Som Luck is a Thai person. In any event, they live in Thailand, and they’re talking about the system in Thailand compared to the system here. So for example, he writes in this comment: I prefer the general Thai QR code system. There are no e-wallets. The QR code is simply the person’s or business’s bank account number. And then they go on in a lot of detail about how it’s different in Thailand. And then maybe I’ll read the second comment as well because they’re related. This person writes, “Next, test out PromptPay in Thailand.” So these comments are coming about because in my video—and in my experiments—I was always or often referring to the QR code systems in other countries, comparing it to how it works here in Indonesia. And the reason I wanted to highlight these topics is not to talk about the system in Thailand—I’ve never been to Thailand using an e-wallet. I don’t have any personal experience. I only know what I’ve read on the internet. So I can’t state with authority how it works there. But what I wanted to talk about is how this topic can get very confusing because of vocabulary, and you have to be careful about that. Because this is how I view it. For example, in Malaysia, their national QR code standardized system is called DuitNow. I think they call them rails. It’s like a national QR code payment network. They call it a rail. That’s the technical word for it. And the QR code network in Indonesia is called QRIS. So DuitNow in Malaysia and QRIS in Indonesia. In general, speaking in general terms, they’re the same thing, right? We have QRIS in Indonesia. The Malaysian version of the same thing is called DuitNow. And in Thailand, their QR code standardized system is called PromptPay. So when you’re speaking in general terms, PromptPay is the Thai version, you know, DuitNow is the Malaysian version, QRIS is the Indonesian version, and they are all the national versions of the same thing, and now they are all being linked together so that they’re working as a network. But then people get lost in the vocabulary. So for example—from I’m reading between the lines here—but I think what Som Luck is telling me is that like nobody uses the word PromptPay in Thailand. Like here in Indonesia, people say, “I use QRIS. You should use QRIS.” Do you use QRIS? QRIS is amazing. Like QRIS is the word that everybody uses when they talk about scanning a QR code. Malaysia is almost like a mixture. The Malaysian version of QRIS is DuitNow. But nobody uses DuitNow as a noun or a verb. People rarely say, “Oh, I use DuitNow all the time.” They don’t say, “Can I use DuitNow?” They don’t say that. They might say, “Oh, can I scan QR code?” Or they might say, “Can I use Touch ‘n Go?” So they might talk about their e-wallet or their banking app. And the e-wallet and the banking app—it uses DuitNow. That’s the system that connects them all together. But in Malaysia, the word DuitNow hasn’t gone into the public vocabulary. It’s not used in casual conversation the way QRIS has become a common word here in Indonesia. And what I’m picking up on from Som Luck’s comments is that in Thailand it’s an extreme version. PromptPay is their version of DuitNow, their version of QRIS, but the concept of PromptPay—the name itself—nobody uses it. It’s just not out there in the public vocabulary. So he keeps telling me, “Well, we don’t use PromptPay.” Like, PromptPay is not the default system. When we scan a QR code, we’re going with a phone number directly to the bank account. And I’m always pushing back on his comments a little bit, saying, “Well, sure, you’re scanning a QR code and the money goes into a bank account, but it’s going into the bank account—the QR code scanning technology is going through PromptPay.” So the money goes from your bank app through PromptPay into their banking account, right? So even though the people in Thailand don’t talk about PromptPay, PromptPay is there doing everything in the background. But here in Indonesia, QRIS is doing the same thing, but QRIS became the word that everybody uses in conversation. Oh, I love using QRIS. I use QRIS every day. But nobody in Thailand would say, “Oh, I love PromptPay. I use PromptPay for everything.” They would say, “Oh, I scan QR codes, or I use this banking app, or I use this e-wallet.” Anyway, I’m not saying they’re right and I’m wrong. These are just sort of how I view all the different QR code systems in all the different countries. But I am saying that the vocabulary gets very convoluted. When you’re having a conversation with someone about e-wallets, you can have misunderstandings based on semantics. You’re talking about the same thing, but you’re just using different words for it, and you get very, very confused. Nobody knows what they’re talking about anymore. A good example of that might be this commenter from Thailand who says they prefer the system in Thailand. He says there are no e-wallets and says that one simply opens one’s banking app, scans the QR code, and that’s how they do it in Thailand. So he prefers their system, he says, because they don’t need e-wallets. But perhaps what he doesn’t understand is that well, they do the exact same thing here in Indonesia. In fact, I don’t know what the percentage is—I use an e-wallet—but lots and lots of Indonesians, they just use their banking app just like he does in Thailand. They don’t get an e-wallet—they just use a bank app. They call it here m-banking. They use their banking app, scan a QR code, send the money. I use an e-wallet because I don’t have a banking app. But in Indonesia it’s a choice. People can use an e-wallet or they can just choose to use their banking app. Same thing in Malaysia: you can use Touch ‘n Go the e-wallet, or you can just stick with your banking app. And then in Thailand it’s the same: you can choose to use an e-wallet or you can use your banking app. So to me the systems are the same in every country, with some variations. But then I do see a lot of people talking about like getting into a little bit of a discussion, but it’s usually based in semantics or misunderstandings. Though at the very end of their comment they bring up something very interesting that I’d love to learn more about. Som Luck writes, however, at least one Thai bank has an e-wallet payment system specifically designed for foreigners. It’s called TagThai. And this is really interesting. I did some research into TagThai. They got a really nice website explaining it very clearly—how it differs from something like Touch ‘n Go or GoPay. It is an e-wallet but is designed specifically for foreigners. It’s like a prepaid e-wallet. Really cool. I think you’re going to see one of these everywhere soon enough. I can’t imagine people that are in charge of these things in Malaysia—if they see TagThai—they’re instantly going to think, “Whoa, that is a great idea. Let’s make one of those for Malaysia.” Because as far as I understand it, you’re a tourist—you fly into the airport in Thailand, and right at the airport you can buy a TagThai prepaid e-wallet, and the money you just pay—give them money—the money’s in the e-wallet, and then you just go out scanning, scanning, scanning. It’s a little bit hard to describe how it works, but it’s specifically for tourists, and it looks like an amazing idea. And I think you’ll see it in Indonesia someday. You’ll see it in Malaysia. I think this idea is quite good. It’s a genius idea, and it’s going to spread to all the other countries soon enough.
A few quick comments to round these out. Maybe one not so quick, but most of them will be pretty quick. This next comment: If I shop using a QRIS code with an e-wallet because I’m lazy to wash my hands when handling money, it’s safer for people who are hygienic maniacs, so they don’t have to use antiseptic gel all the time. So they’re talking about an advantage of using an e-wallet: that you don’t have to handle dirty money. And you can think of two sides to this issue—whether money really is risky. It may or may not be—but whether it is or not, a lot of people think it is. Or they see really dirty money and they’re like, I don’t want to touch that. And they take this dirty money and ah, they’re just not comfortable handling it. So anyone who was concerned about health and safety and anything that can be transmitted through anything—contamination, dirty money—e-wallet solves that problem. Contactless payments: scan the QR code, payments go through. You don’t have to exchange anything like dirty money going from wallet to wallet to wallet. So that’s a big advantage of e-wallets.
Another interesting comment: affordable soundbox devices are also available. No need to use expensive EDC for merchants to have transaction confirmation without checking their merchant app in their phone. And what they’re talking about—I saw this in Malaysia. I haven’t seen it anywhere in Banda Aceh—but some merchants in Malaysia had a speaker system connected to their e-wallet system. So that when I went there with Touch ‘n Go, I scan their QR code, I make a payment—a voice announces, you have just received 20 ringgit from Touch ‘n Go. So the merchant doesn’t have to look at your confirmation page, doesn’t have to take a picture of it, doesn’t need an expensive scanner—an EDC machine—to show them the confirmation, stuff like that. They just have what they call a sound box. A voice just tells you that the payment went through, and that’s very handy.
Two more comments. This is a really interesting one: GoPay has its own app if you don’t want to get bothered by the other services, and it’s way more cleaner in my opinion, especially with the big QRIS button in the app. This is a very important point, and I’m thinking about making a complete video about just this topic. Because as I talked about already—when I made my QRIS video—I decided to keep it as simple as possible. So I did everything through the QRIS—no, I did everything through the Gojek super app, because the GoPay e-wallet is part of Gojek. Do you see what I mean? There’s Gojek, and GoPay is part of it. So Gojek is not the e-wallet. GoPay is the e-wallet, but it’s built into Gojek, and that’s what I used all the time. But if you wanted to, you can use the GoPay e-wallet as a completely separate app. You download it separately. You launch it separate from Gojek. And I thought the only advantage to doing that was it just looked better, right? Like GoPay the e-wallet app by itself is cleaner, because Gojek has so many features: GoCar, GoRide, GoFood—so many buttons. And the GoPay section is tiny. The buttons are small. And the pay button is way up at the top of the screen. But the GoPay app—the e-wallet app—is only the e-wallet, and that’s it. So the screen is much cleaner, makes a lot more sense. It’s not cluttered, and it doesn’t have a tiny pay button. It has a big QRIS button down at the bottom of the screen. So most people hold their phone in one hand, right? Like this. I don’t, but most people do that—they walk around, they hold it, and then they use their thumb to hit the button. And if you have a QRIS button down at the bottom, it’s very convenient to hit the QRIS button. It’s fast and convenient. Gojek—the pay button is up at the top, and you can’t reach it with your thumb, right? That doesn’t matter to me because I do it two-handed—I hold my phone with one hand and I hit buttons with the other. But if you’re one of these thumb people, then GoPay has a better interface. It’s cleaner, nicer to use, more—yeah—simpler. But it turns out there are a lot more advantages to using GoPay by itself. And I’m not going to go into all of them because I want to make a whole separate video about it—maybe. But I already talked about one of them in this video, where Wander Eats was asking me about what do you do if you have extra money in your e-wallet that you’re not going to spend. Well, you can withdraw the money from your e-wallet, but you have to do it through GoPay app. You can’t do it through Gojek. See what I mean? So there are some features in GoPay—the GoPay e-wallet app—that are not in Gojek. So that’s a very important point. You have to think about Gojek and GoPay—they’re the same thing, but you can download a separate GoPay app. And there’s a lot of advantages to doing that that I wasn’t aware of. I’m learning about them right now.
Last comment, and then this one really puts me in my place because I completely overlooked this. Yeah, I really like this comment. They write, “One of the advantages is that the price will be the same as local people wherever it is used.” So what they’re talking about is an advantage to using an e-wallet. And I talked about the advantages all over the place—there’s this advantage, there’s that advantage. I love e-wallets because of this, because of that. I never thought of this one. Such a dummy. The advantage is the price is the same for everybody: foreigners, locals, tourists, expats, backpackers, businessmen—everybody gets the same price when they use an e-wallet. And yeah, that’s a huge advantage. I mean, like one of the main pet peeves for a lot of foreigners is we always have this feeling like we’re being overcharged. Like we go to the restaurant and we order lunch. Everybody else—it seems like they’re paying 15,000 rupiah. Our bill comes and they say it’s 38,000 rupiah. And you’re like, hold it—how come I have to pay 38,000? Everybody else is paying 15. And you’re not sure. Like maybe your meal was more expensive, but you can’t shake this feeling like you’re being overcharged all the time ’cause you don’t know what the price is. I have no idea. I could order food right now, but there’s no menus—there’s no prices listed. So you never know whether you’re getting the local price or the foreigner price. And you’re always thinking about that. Particularly when it comes to like taxis—that’s the most famous example, right? You want to be overcharged—take a taxi from the airport, because they’re going to gouge you for as much money as they can possibly get out of you, because they assume, well, you just arrived in the country—you don’t know. You don’t know what things cost yet. So they’ll just throw out a huge number, and a lot of tourists like me will just pay it ’cause we don’t know—we think that’s the right price. Enter e-wallets: the price is the same for everybody, and you never have to worry about it again. I go into wherever and I scan the QR code, and the price comes up. A local person scans that QR code—they get the same price. It’s always—you know, you take a Grab car, you book it online, and the price comes up. You go to the museum—scan—oh, there’s the price. It’s the same for everybody. So that is a big advantage to e-wallets that I never thought of.
There are many, many more comments that I could have included in this video. If I didn’t pinpoint your exact comment in the video, I’m sorry about that. I couldn’t really—I don’t have enough time to talk about all of them. But I replied to as many comments as I could by typing on YouTube itself. So hopefully your comment got a like or a love or a reply from me. But yeah, thank you very much to everybody who left a comment on the video—everyone who left these comments that I talked about today, who corrected my mistakes, who told me things that I didn’t know, who expanded on things and taught me, gave me a lot of new information. And yeah, I appreciate that very, very much. I learned a lot through the comments, and I was really happy to be able to make this video and talk about them on camera so that everybody else can benefit from your comments, I hope, and learn more about e-wallets, about QRIS, about GoPay, about life here as a tourist, as a foreigner, and for local people here in Indonesia. So thank you to everyone. I hope you enjoyed all of that. Shutting down here at my favorite coffee shop in this amazing weather. The weather here in Banda Aceh has been incredible. So happy about that. Yeah, beautiful sunny day after sunny day, and yeah, really been enjoying my time here. So that’s it. Shutting down. See you in the next video.