According to VRL, Singapore’s electronic payments provider, NETS, is to offer the city-state’s youth market prepaid contactless-enabled key fobs and wristbands as alternative form factors to its NETS FlashPay cards.
The key fobs will be the first of the alternative form factors to be launched next month. These will be later followed by contactless wristbands. The proposed price for both the prepaid contactless key fobs and wristbands is S$15 – three times more than a NETS FlashPay card.
At present, the wristbands and key fobs cannot be used on trains and buses in Singapore. However, Rakesh Krishnamuti, vice president for product issuance and usage, consumer services at NETS, said: “It is our plan in future to enable them to be used [on trains and buses]”.
NETS also plans to launch a mobile payments offering that includes prepaid funtionality, thereby allowing consumers to store value and top-up funds.
The mobile payments offering from NETS would take the form of a microSD card, which can be slotted into mobile phones with microSD slots, such as those sold by Samsung and Research in Motion. NETS has yet to release a date for the commercial launch of its mobile payments offering, but it is expected to be commercially available within the next year.
Commenting on its activity in the mobile payments space, Cynthia Liaw, general manager for consumer services at NETS, said: “We will launch a form factor on the phone that is very similar to the use of the NETS FlashPay card. There is minimal need to educate customers on how to use it.”
Liaw said the fact that the NETS FlashPay non-card form factors for the key fobs, wristbands and mobile phones, will be accepted at 14,000 retail outlets across Singapore, is a key advantage.
Krishnamuti added that research has shown that the Singapore market is quite receptive to a novelty form factor and consumers are willing to pay more for payment form factors that are both unique and useful in terms of form and functionality.
