Icash-EasyCard Promises to Become Taiwan's Most Popular e-Wallet

On June 11 the EasyCard Corp. and President Chain Store Corp. announced an alliance for the joint issuance of the icash-EasyCard, which promises to become a highly popular e-wallet for small daily purchases in Taiwan much as the Octopus Card is in Hong Kong.

The new card will combine the functions of the EasyCard and President's icash card, and will be usable at 8,000 retail outlets operated by President Chain Store-4,800 7-Eleven stores plus Starbucks coffee shops and drugstores-as well as well as on the Taipei MRT system, city buses, parking lots, libraries, and the Taipei Zoo. It will also be accepted at the FamilyMart and Hi-Life convenience-store chains.

There are already 16 million EasyCards in circulation, and they are used 3 million times a day. Icash cardholders number 7.4 million. The integration of the two cards will greatly expand the potential e-wallet customer base for President Chain Store and will help the EasyCard penetrate markets outside Greater Taipei, especially in central and southern Taiwan.

The icash-EasyCard will be able to store value up to NT$10,000 and is expected to be in circulation by the end of the year, after the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) gives its nod of approval.

EasyCard Corp. chairman Lien Sheng-wen stated that his company would try to further expand the use of its card by signing up such operations as Domino's Pizza and the Miramar entertainment complex. The issuer wants to boost the number of contracted stores to over 10,000 by the end of the year; as Lien said, "Our goal is to surpass Octopus of Hong Kong."

The icash-EasyCard will be the first fruit of a new law governing the issuance of electronic certificates, which the Legislative Yuan enacted in January this year. The law allows non-financial institutions with NT$300 million or more in capital to issue stored-value cards, thereby ending the e-wallet monopoly by financial institutions.

Other local companies are also gearing up to enter the e-wallet market, notably the Far Eastern Group, which already handles the Happy Go card and electronic toll collection (ETC) system.

The FSC recently published a draft of security guidelines for electronic certificates, under which stored-value cards with weak security, such as the EasyCard, will be limited to a maximum value of NT$1,000 per transaction while those with stronger security, such as bank-issued e-wallets, will not be subject to that ceiling.