Monetary Auth of Singapore My experience with card payment (NETS, Ez Link)
I share my view about cashless payment.

The best approach to promote cashless payment is to use a payment card (e.g. Ez Link or Nets Flash). The customer tops up the card and pays to the merchant to tapping the POS device.

The merchant can use a mobile phone (with NFC) as the POS device or buy a POS device for S$150.

I understand that the Octopus card (similar to Ez Link) is well used in Hong Kong.

I use a Passion concession card for public transport in Singapore. I tried to use it to make payment at a convenience store. It did not work. (Apparently the convenience store can accept Ez Link, but not Passion.This is confusing).

I bought 2 Nets Flash card and 1 Ez Link card to test their use for retail payment.

I had a lot of trouble in using the Nets app to top up the card online. (I talked to the Nets support staff on three occasions but it did not help). The app was difficult to use and contained bugs.

I went to the MRT station to top up the Nets and Ez link card. It went through smoothly at the MRT kiosks.

I went to the POSB kiosk to top up 1 Nets Flash card. It was troublesome. I had to go through maybe 10 screens to complete the process. Why does POSB have to make it so complicated?

Finally, I went to the convenience store to pay with my Nets Flash card. The device rejected the Nets Flash card several times. The retail assistant asked me to pay with Pay Wave (Mastercard) instead. She made one last attempt with Nets Flash. It went through.

From this experience, I learned why the Nets Flash and Ez Link cards are hardly used for retail payment. It is difficult to top up and use these cards. There is a charge for topping up the card using some modes. It is quite complicated.

There is also the obstacle faced by the merchant of collecting through card payment. They have to pay a transaction fee to the platform. They now do not pay any fee when they collect cash. (The merchant does not pay attention to the hidden cost of collecting cash).

I went through a lot of trouble to learn how to overcome the obstacles of using the Nets and Ez Link platforms for retail payments. Most people will not take the trouble. They will continue to pay by cash.

To make card payment the preferred choice, MAS should fund the cost of operating the platform, to put it on the same basis as cash payment (where the banks now subsidize fully the cost of cash services, such as ATM withdrawals and cash deposits).

MAS should also provide a convenient link for the consumer to top up the payment card using Pay Now. They provided the Pay Now API but it did not work for DBS Bank. (Apparently, the other banks did not face this problem).

MAS now promotes mobile payment using SGQR and Pay Now. It is troublesome for the customer to pay by mobile (compared to cash). The merchant also faced difficulty (as I reported in a previous feedback). The SGQR is hardly used.

Tan Kin Lian

 

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