In this era of technological boom It is not uncommon to find that a large part of human activities have been digitized, from activities such as shopping, making payments, among many others, currently humans live more in the digital world than in the real; but for this to exist digitization of human activities There had to be a necessary point, the digitization of money, and that is that without it we cannot carry out any of the aforementioned activities.
So in many ways you can talk in the actuality of physical money and digital money, and due to the advances that exist, this last category of digital money can be divided into two parts, virtual money and real digital money. In order to simplify this, let's mention that there are virtual currencies, that they do not have a value granted or regulated by a government, and that their physical existence is not viable; On the other hand, we find real digital money, which is the one that is in our bank accounts, that is to say that this money is easily transferable and can be transformed from digital to real in a bank terminal. And finally we find the physical or real money, which are all the coins and bills that we can touch.
But of all the variety of possibilities that we can find today we will mention a specific one, the money card, a way that has been invented in order to streamline many human movements and transactions, and that is possible thanks to the digitization of real money, let's learn more about this type of cards, their benefits and their operation.
The wallet card
This card is listed as a multipurpose micro payment system; One of the premises of this system is that the payments made with this type of card is that they are payments of low amounts, but of very high volume. Generally, these types of low-amount payments require a high speed in order to reduce service times, but it also requires high levels of security, since, due to the amount of payments made, finding a fault in the system can be quite complicated.
Once the problem was well identified, a quick and easy way to solve it was devised, and the result was the wallet cards. These cards in conjunction with the system that keeps them active are of great help today.
Let's see and analyze some of the advantages that these cards allow. The first thing is that the user avoids many lines, that is to say that the congestion of people in the payment points of the establishments is reduced considerably. As a result of this we find that much time is gained that was previously wasted in the payment process; This means that the efficiency and speed of customer service is considerably high.
Another advantage that this system brings is that it is fast, easy to use and is also very practical. We can see this in the moments when we go to a physical store and pay with a wallet card; its use is really simple, and yet it is very effective.
One of the characteristics that had been mentioned at the beginning of the article was security, this system allows you to quickly make money transactions from one source to another, but this ensuring that both parties agree that said transaction is carried out, so the security systems that were implemented in order to have the control of this type of transaction, so our money and our transactions are completely safe.
It also helps fight one of the main problems in business At the time of making the payment of our products or services, and how many times has it happened to us that we only have one ticket to pay, and the staff mentions that they have no change, this process called demonetization, is something very common, but what is avoided with wallet cards, since the amount of the transaction is exactly equivalent to the cost of our products, so this problem does not exist, and we avoid that this way we are kept in the box for longer, time in which we will try to get the coins to be able to complete the transaction.
In addition, it should be noted that this payment scheme is quite versatile as it is accepted by a wide variety of businesses, and it is possible that we even pay the public transport using this system. Without a doubt, all these advantages are considerable, and allow a lot of savings.
Its operation
The way these cards work is through a electronic chip, which allows strict control over the transactions we carry out; This chip serves as the one in charge of identifying our account, with which we are sure that it is ours, and that we are only charged the amount that we accept.
So we already know how our account is obtained, but what about the money? The truth is that it is something very simple, once we have given the collector our card, our account is identified, once this happens, I can recharge the amount we want, from a few euros to the amount we want or not allowed by the store, in this way the transaction is made with real money; although it is possible that we also make payments to our wallet card by using a credit or debit card. In this way we can manage our budget well, granting only a certain amount to a certain product or store.
Another possibility that exists is that this card is linked to our credit or debit card, this in order that we never run out of balance, or that the balance we have is not enough to make the purchase or payment of the services provided. Although the administration of wallet card funds and its use are completely at the discretion of the card owner.
Money card in Spain
Among the varieties of purse cards that exist, in Spain we can find the following:
- First is the 4B purse, which is used specifically by the 4B consortium, so if we want to know more about its operation we can request the information on the website of said consortium.
- The EURO 6000 wallet, this wallet card is specified by the Spanish Confederation of Savings Banks, and the base is in CEN WG10; This purse, due to its very nature, is quite versatile and is accepted in many institutions, although it is recommended that we carefully review the clauses of use and the conditions that we have to abide by if we want to use it.
- The VISA CASH wallet; This wallet card is specified by VISA, and is based on TIBC, which is the Smart Card for Banks and Savings Banks; Although it should be noted that one of the main disadvantages of this type of card is that there is no interoperability between them, this tends to slightly complicate administrative issues and some transactions, however several attempts are already being made to stimulate interoperability in order to do so. make the use of the cards much easier for the user.
- VMEs; This wallet card is the Europa and MasterCard VISA, and it is a standard that was started by EMVCo, in 1999, this card works thanks to the association of Europay, MasterCard and Visa, which are the largest companies in what is refers to electronic transfers. The main use of these cards is to manage and promote virtual applications specifications, as well as terminals and smart cards, which is done in order to unify, as far as possible, the transactions of these cards.
- CEPS, these are the Common Specifications of the Electronic Wallet; This standard was initiated by the Spanish CEPSCO, AIE, EURO Kartensysteme, Europay and Visa; and the purpose of this association was to be able to provide the user with a wallet card that is interoperable throughout the world, so its use is not limited solely to operation in the national or European territory. Therefore, its versatility is much greater than what many of the other cards that we find on the market can offer.
There is no doubt that this system is something complex that has required a lot of work on the part of the financial institutions that have intervened in its creation, and is that the system to be able to operate correctly required technological and logistical development, so that everything that has been mentioned above could be provided to the user.
Using one of these cards It is a great advantage, since it greatly facilitates payment, in addition to allowing us to have greater control over our small expenses that we make regularly, and this will allow us to have much healthier personal finances, improving our performance and our lifestyle in ways we hadn't considered before.