It is disheartening to read about CCS' ruling that Nets' fee hike is not an abuse of its monopoly position.

Although Nets claimed that this issue will affect only the merchants and retailers, consumers believe that any additional cost incurred will ultimately be passed on to consumers.

Given that the interpretation of the Act is technically in place, as consumers, we cannot rationalise how it is not monopoly from the perspective that Nets was the sole player when it started operations 22 years ago. It has since served a niche market in cashless transactions.

When retailers and consumers have grown to be largely dependent on Nets today, even with the introduction of debit cards we cannot deny that Nets has occupied an irreversible, advantageous position in the market.

The CCS has noted that there are alternative payment methods but clearly failed to recognise that the credit and debit cards and ez-link cards it mentioned are not exactly the same as Nets in terms of the many criteria and membership qualifications needed to apply for each card.

In reality, there is no 'Nets equivalent card" to meet the needs of some senior citizens and other less financially endowed Singaporeans because they basically do not qualify for any of the cards in the market.

If reverting to cash transactions is the only way out for this group of Singaporeans, even if in the minority, then the banks have not performed their roles fairly to every customer.

All banks introduced transaction cards to enhance their earnings. If Nets truly believes that it can provide tangible and positive benefits to Singapore consumers and the economy, as it claimed, it should not hesitate to dissolve its current functionality immediately and initiate cards similar to the banks to compete on an equal footing.

If Nets chooses to retain its existing businesses and monopolistic advantage over others then it should rethink the proposed fee hike.

Richard Goh Chee Kok