Shopping with cellular phone remains sluggish

T-Cash is the new service from Telkomsel by which cellular phone will serve as wallet for shopping with cash money. T-Cash user might get cash money in the Telkomsel’s shops. T-Cash is not that easy if compared to the FeliCa in NTT, DoCoMo in Japan. There, people can buy Coca Cola or a pack of cigarette just by handing over the cellular phone for payment. In Indonesia , it takes several minutes to make transaction with Telkomsel T-Cash for waiting for the authorization. Bambang Supriyogo, Telkomsel vice president mobile commerce, admitted there have so far been 500 numbers subscribing the program. But, it targeted to have 8 million customers by the end of year. The other operators followed Telkomsel strategy. For instance, XL has kept an eye for it. XL general marketing manager, Nurudin, said such strategy will not become trend within the next one or two years. However, Indosat has even proposed for permit to the Central Bank of Indonesia in this case.