Like the ez-link card, it can be used for travel, parking and shopping
By
Tan Weizhen
NETS launches the long-awaited all-purpose payment card to rival EZlink cards. -- PHOTO: ST
COMMUTERS will now have two payment cards to choose from to use on buses and trains, to pay for road tolls and carparks, and to make purchases from stores, eateries and entertainment outlets.
On Friday, Nets (the Network For Electronic Transfers) launched its long-awaited multi-purpose contactless card, the first to break EZ-Link's longtime stranglehold on the $1.3 billion transit market.
Like ez-link, the Nets Flashpay card has multiple uses, giving consumers wider modes of payment at a greater range of outlets.
In November, local banks UOB and OCBC will come on board, followed by DBS next March, to offer bank debit cards that also double as Flashpay cards. This means customers can top up their cards directly from their bank accounts.
EZ-Link launched a similar contactless multi-purpose card in January, three years after the Land Transport Authority announced it would liberalise the transit market, allowing up to four operators to offer multi-purpose cards.
To steal a march on the competition, EZ-Link said all 4.6 million old cards in use had to be converted to the new ones for free by Wednesday this week.
Read the full story in Saturday's edition of The Straits Times
