5 Types of People Who Should Use E-Wallets

The eWallet market is huge, with companies from Grab to Paypal all competing for a share. In the midst of all these options, one question stands out: what’s the main benefit of an eWallet, and which types of customers really benefit from them? Here are the people who should seriously consider switching to a more cashless lifestyle:

You may think that, being a form of cashless payment, eWallets make spending easier. However, this isn’t always true. One main advantage of eWallets, whether it’s PayPal or GrabPay, is that you can control how much you load into them.

For example, say you’ve made a strict budget of S$70 for dining outdoors, for the month. If you’re just using a credit or debit card, you may find yourself exceeding this budget. But if you preload S$70 into your eWallet, well...you won’t be able to dine out with an empty account!

When you start getting messages about insufficient funds, you’ll know it’s time to go home and eat for the rest of the month, or to start packing lunch boxes.

So if you have a particular source of weakness - such as online shopping, or spending too much on Uber and Grab rides - consider preloading a fixed amount in your eWallet. You’ll be forced to follow your budget limits, once the eWallet runs empty.

Some people need to make a lot of transfers, to a lot of different bank accounts even on one day. These include people who run a side-business on eBay or Carousell, or small business owners who need to pay their employees (not everyone has a secretary/accountant to manage things for them).

Having to read through a lot of account numbers is a major headache. If you need to transfer money to 10 or more people every day, for example, you’re going to be lining up in front of ATMs a lot (and annoying everyone else in the queue). Another option is Internet Banking, but you might not have your token with you all the time. 

But with eWallets, you can easily make transfers via email addresses, or in some cases even just phone numbers. More importantly, you don’t need to head down to ATMs or bank branches to start making payments. This can save precious hours, if you’re running a business.

We all know that banks (we won’t point fingers) have precious few ATMs. You can end up walking three blocks, or taking the train to a particular mall, just to withdraw cash.

If you don’t want to switch to DBS, eWallets are one solution. They mitigate your need to find ATMs or bank branches, as you can draw on your funds from anywhere.

One problem with budgeting is the day-to-day tracking. It’s inconvenient to record every little thing you spend; and even if you have an app that does it, let’s be frank: you’re going to forget every now and then.

Credit card and bank statements help, but they usually arrive at the end of the month.

With eWallets, you can check your transaction history right away. You can get a daily, up-to-the-moment update on how much you’ve spent. This is the first step to identifying your major costs.

If you’ve lost your wallet more than two or three times, you may want to consider an eWallet instead. This will spare you having to replace multiple credit cards/debit cards, and having to call each bank to explain the situation.

Because the eWallet is virtual, all that you usually need is your smartphone. Even if you do lose your smartphone, there’s password security - it’s much easier for thieves to use your physical credit card, than it is for them to hack into your eWallet.

Consider your eWallet to be an added layer of security.