Bye EZ Link, Bye NETS Flash Pay, Hello MasterCard?
A while back ago, there was a news piece that quietly slipped past the radars of most people, but I read it with quite some keen interest. It was an article about how it was going to be possible to pay for public transport directly with your contactless credit card and charged through the credit card network instead of going through a stored value wallet.
I recently saw a Facebook campaign by POSB asking ppl to sign up for this service, although they did have a promotion to have 3 free rides if you register before the... 12th. But today is the 13th, oh well.
Anyway, I still signed up for the service.
Why do I think that it is good?
1) No more stored value wallets
2) No more top-up charges
3) Possibly free up 1 card space in your wallet
Personally, as much as I like the ATU / Reload function of the EZ and NETS cards, I don't like that I have to top up like $50 into my card and slowly draw it down over the next month or two.
I also don't like paying a small admin fee to have this top-up service every single time. Of course I understand that there is some cost involved, but of course free would be better, right?
With this new change, hopefully I can refund the balance in my NETS Flashpay stored wallet, retire that card, and just use my newer card that is linked to this direct deduction service.
I really don't like having so many cards in my wallet. Now all I need to do after this is to figure out which credit card do I want to keep, and which do I want to ditch for good...
I recently saw a Facebook campaign by POSB asking ppl to sign up for this service, although they did have a promotion to have 3 free rides if you register before the... 12th. But today is the 13th, oh well.
Anyway, I still signed up for the service.
Why do I think that it is good?
1) No more stored value wallets
2) No more top-up charges
3) Possibly free up 1 card space in your wallet
Personally, as much as I like the ATU / Reload function of the EZ and NETS cards, I don't like that I have to top up like $50 into my card and slowly draw it down over the next month or two.
I also don't like paying a small admin fee to have this top-up service every single time. Of course I understand that there is some cost involved, but of course free would be better, right?
With this new change, hopefully I can refund the balance in my NETS Flashpay stored wallet, retire that card, and just use my newer card that is linked to this direct deduction service.
I really don't like having so many cards in my wallet. Now all I need to do after this is to figure out which credit card do I want to keep, and which do I want to ditch for good...
