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by Victor Cheung, Hong Kong SAR, PRC

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The new rival to Octopus Card--the Hang Seng enJoy Card

Dec 27, 2007 16:34

Last month, the Hang Seng Bank, Jardine Matheson and Visa jointly announced the launch of a co-branded credit card--the Hang Seng enJoy Card--the first credit card in Hong Kong to utilize the Visa payWave contactless payment technology which allows cardholders to enjoy the convenience of fast and secure payments.

This new card system is to rival the Octopus Card (cash prepaid card system), which has been dominating Hong Kong's contactless smart card segment since its launch. Presently, the Octopus Card can be used in virtually all of Hong Kong's transportation systems including the MTR (railway lines), public buses, mini-buses, trams and shuttles. In addition, the Octupus Card can also be used in fast food outlets, bakeries, convenience stores, supermarkets, cinemas, etc. (and the list is growing), and is widely accepted in over 5,000 vending machines and kiosks and over 160 carparks and 18,000 parking meters within the territory.

The Hang Seng enJoy Card, however, would not be the first to rise against the well-established Octopus Card. Amongst the first competitors to the Octopus Card were the Visa Cash introduced by the Bank of China (Bank of East Asia subsequently joined the program as well) and the Mondex wallet from the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank (HSBC) and subsequently the Hang Seng Bank as well. Both systems were launched in 1995 with little success and were forced to retreat from the local retail market between 2000-2002.

Reasons the two systems failed were mainly due to the hefty service charge levied (Visa Cash was charging customers HK$80 annual service fee and Mondex was charging HK$100 back then, while banks were charging HK$50 annually for their ATM cards); long transaction time (it takes a minute to 1.5 minutes to close out a single transaction, now that's like back to the Stone Age), complicated setup (merchants find the setup too complicated and refused to use it even though their service charges were waived. I still remember back in 1998 when I received the free Mondex terminal for my bar, I don't recall ever using that at all, LOL); and lack the flexibility to double as a bank ATM card (for Mondex only, Visa Cash managed to do so).

So this time around, people wondered how different the enJoy Card would be from the others that failed to penetrate the market. According to James Dixon, country manager, Hong Kong and Macau, Visa International, "Visa payWave increases speed and convenience at the point of sale by allowing the cardholder to "wave, pay and go". The card does not leave the cardholder's hand and there is no need to provide a signature and Hong Kong is the fifth market to offer Visa payWave in the Asia-Pacific region.

From Hang Seng Bank's Web site, we learned that the enJoy Card is linked to the personal Hang Seng Hong Kong Dollar deposit account and, upon spending at any merchant, transaction amount will be debited from the Spending Card instantly. Whenever the card account balance falls below the required amount for a transaction, the enJoy Card will automatically reload to settle the payment. The amount of each auto top-up is HK$300 and HK$500, depending on the choice upon application. The daily and monthly auto top-up limits are HK$1,000 and HK$30,000, respectively. For each transaction, the upper-bound spending limit is HK$500, transaction over that amount would have to go through the normal credit card spending transaction procedures and customers must sign on the sales slip in order to complete the payment transaction.

In addition, customers can add up to two different accounts onto the enJoy Card and use it as an ATM card for deposits and withdrawals.

All this sounds really neat and I truly believe that competition will bring around more benefits to the consumers and am really looking forward to getting my enJoy Card.

For more information, please refer to the following: The Hang Seng enJoy Card press release/The Hang Seng Bank enJoy Card Web site

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hkgeoff

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hkgeoff says...
Alrighty, so all I need to then is wave, pay and go?? Sure!

But will retailers be able to increase their conversion so quickly? Octopus is such an ingrained part of our lives now that it seems a tad bit much to have a competitor. But I am very much looking forward to the great competition!

Jan 17, 2008 13:44

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Cheungkongs...

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Cheungkongseven says...
I think whether enJoy will succeed depends on the added-value it brings to the consumer. The Octopus brought revolutionary convenience when introduced. I now don't carry much coins with me and prefer to shop at places where Octopus is accepted. As far as I can see right now, enJoy doesn't offer any extra value that my Octopus can't provide. It is still way behind in terms of merchant acceptance. Real competition to Octopus will be introduced when their infrastructure and card issuance are split up.

Feb 04, 2008 14:48

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About Victor Cheung

A true tech junkie at heart, Victor Cheung has been obsessed with all tech gadgets since his college days. His favorite gizmos span from tablet PCs to UMPC, to PMPs, gaming consoles, mobile phones and anything with WiFi 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.0 on it. A newcomer to the blog scene, he started his own quasi-tech blog, The Hong Kong Phooey in October 2006.