On Dec 18, 7:09*am, Robert wrote:
On 2008-12-17 19:40:14 +0000, Mizter T said:







On 17 Dec, 18:38, naked_draughtsman
wrote:

On Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:43:57 -0800, Matthew Dickinson wrote:
You can now buy coffee in London with an ITSO compatible card.

seehttp://www.squidcard.com/coffeerepublic.html

This card is also being adopted by GMPTE for their smartcard.

I've had a pay pass enabled mastercard for some time now but I've not
found anywhere that accepts it.

According to Mastercard loads of places in London accept it though!

I remember when Visa's "payWave" system launched last year (the first
card being the all-in-one Barclaycard "OnePulse") there was talk of
initial limited acceptance in a few places like shops in Canary Wharf.
So I was rather surprised that, having seen a payWave terminal in a
swanky newsagents in Canary Wharf, I then found one a few days later
in a pretty rough-round-the-edges off licence in New Cross - and yes
they said a few people had already paid that way.

Incidentally, I assume that the Visa "payWave" and Mastercard
"PayPass" systems are compatible, in that a payment terminal in a shop
can handle both Mastercard and Visa cards?

Regarding the original post - very interesting about the ITSO-based
'sQuid card', though I need to do a bit of reading to decipher
everything that's going on here, what with the GMPTE agreement to
trial it and also Bolton council's involvement.

And as Neil has already said, in a sense this is similar to what Visa
payWave offers (as well as Mastercard PayPass) - and I'm sure there
are coffee establishments that accept those RFID cards. That said I
haven't yet come across a payWave or PayPass card that is prepaid -
i.e. one that you can top-up (as you now can with a few prepaid debit
cards) - at the moment the payWave and PayPass cards are being offered
by to the higher-ish-end of the market. The sQuidcard people appear to
hope that they can tap in to a far wider market than that, e.g. kids.

Lastly there were once plans for London's Oyster card to act as an e-
money system as well (i.e. to enable holders to buy low value items
not just pay for fares), but these got shelved back in 2006 - here's
an article about the plan being ditched...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05...tcard_shelved/

The aforementioned piece doesn't however touch on the issues of TfL
effectively having to act as a bank and the burden of the associated
regulation that would ensue if this plan was to go ahead, which I have
read elsewhere was a significant factor in the plans being dropped.
Given the possible security issues that now surround the MiFare
Classic smartcard (which Oyster uses), this is perhaps just as well.

Anyway, when it comes to buying low value items (apart from local
fares where Oyster is a boon), I've never had any particular issues
with using cash! From Mondex onwards, cashless payment systems for
small purchases seems to have been regarded as the holy grail (see all
the notions of cashless payment by mobile or 'm-payments') - I wonder
if it isn't just technology desperately looking for a use...

I cannot for the life of me see what the advantages are, for the
customer, of an electronic form of payment over cash for small amounts.
Cash is well developed, the bugs have been ironed out of it and it's
easy to see your current balance. The only disadvantage is that you
have to ensure that you have some in your pocket when you set out. Is
that so difficult? People have managed it for thousands of years.

There is an argument that sometimes you don't have the right money for
'exact amount only' transactions. I've only come across this concept on
some bus services and car parking machines. It is the attitude of
organisations which treats their customers with disdain. I cannot
imagine my local corner shop putting up a notice saying 'exact payment
only'.

The technology is a solution looking for a problem. Somebody, somewhere
is trying to skim a few percent off small everyday transactions. Why
else would they be pushing the idea? Why increase the costs of small
transactions and complicate something that is very simple - and above
all, works?

Electronic tagging. It's all going in the database. When they find
that people who drink coffee have more heart attacks, your database
record of beverage purchases will be used to deny you insurance etc
etc.