NETS, issuer of the CashCard, has reiterated its desire to move into the contactless smart card market space once it is opened up, as expected, in September next year.

This was revealed in the first interview conducted by Nets' new chairman Rajan Raju, who is also DBS' head of consumer banking. He officially took over on Nov 28 from Ajit Kanagasundram,managing director in the Technology and Operations division, who has retired from DBS.

In a wide-ranging discussion about Nets, which was formed by the three local banks in 1985, Mr Raju said that the company also faces short term challenges from an uncertain economic environment as well as longer term challenges from increased competition among debit cards.

In August this year, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) unveiled a new card that would replace the ez-link card that is compliant with Contactless E-Purse Application Standard (Cepas) technology.

This technology allows users of the card to pay for public transport as well Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) charges and cabs, and even non-transport applications, like settling library fines or restaurant bills.

With the new smart card likely to eat into Nets' market dominance in the retail sector- it currently has 95 per cent of the market for debit transactions, according to Nets' chief executive Poh Mui Hoon - Nets has identified the $1.5 billion transit market as an area for it to expand into.

Mr Raju said that Cepas-compliant card will be Nets' priority next year.

He said: 'Once that space is opened up Nets will be there.'

Ms Poh said Nets is already developing and preparing for launching Cepas-compliant service cards and trials would be started early next year before an expected launch in September, when LTA opens up the market to other companies.

LTA has limited the number of Cepas-compliant card issuers to four for the time being, with the other two yet unknown.

The new cards are expected to increase competition among card issuers and could well lower card costs as has happened in the credit card market.