In message , at 23:45:56 on Fri, 3 Aug 2007,
Nick Leverton remarked:
AIUI (I could be out of date, I've been out of EPOS for a long while)
there isn't currently any such concept as "cash on a card". Banks might
one day be able to issue cards that can hold cash, backed by their legally
mandated reserves in the same way as other accounts. But at present LUL
are just letting you pre-pay for their service with a fancy chip card to
record your pre-payment, which doesn't bring it within the legal reach
of either cash or credit regulations.
It doesn't feel like that to me (and yes, I know the legal position is a
complex one).
On my Oyster Card I have about ten quid of money that as far as I am
concerned is deposited with "bank of Tfl", and might one day be used to
pay for travel (as-I-go), or [I believe] I can get refunded. And there
has been at least some expectation that you might one day be able to use
the same card to pay for (from the same money deposit) a can of drink
from a machine, or a newspaper from WHS. But the important thing is that
my balance is expressed in money.
Whereas my Nottingham bus ticket has four days of travel left, and I
wouldn't expect to either be able to get a refund or use it for buying
ad-hoc items. All I can do is "enjoy" my four days of travel [as it's a
carnet, any four days, but they also do season-ticket versions].
You could have "credit on a card", with the credit backed by the
card issuer. The product would just hold the amount of your current
credit with the particular issuer(s). One day all credit cards might
work that way, rather than the antiquated chip-and-pin bodge the UK has
only just got round to rolling out.
This is the new Wave and Pay cards, I presume.
I *think* I'm right in saying that this is what Oyster would become if
we went the Octopus route of paying for small goods with your Oyster. I
presume LUL would continue to only give you credit against an
equivalent deposit ! But it still wouldn't be cash on the card, unless
maybe LUL became a bank.
Feels like cash on the card. How else can it be described?
Cards with bank-backed stored value (essentially cash-on-a-card) have been
trialled a couple of times in small areas in the UK, but both fizzled
out about 10 years ago in a blaze of non-publicity.
I have an Amex "Plastic Card Travellers Cheque", which feels just like
that - you top it up with money, then use it to buy things using the
standard credit card infrastructure (and ATMs). They promoted them about
a year ago.
I never found out the results of the trials and the reasons they
weren't taken any further, despite an interest in the subject.
The Post Office has recently started promoting a very similar thing:
http://news.cheapflights.co.uk/fligh...y_money_c.html
and Google seems to think LLoyds has one too.
ITSO (again AIUI, though I've not read in depth) is more about a
defined way to hold several products (so you could have one card
holding a couple of season tickets and some stored PAYG travel credits
and maybe your library card plus some credit value from your favourite
coffee shop) rather than either a way to hold cash or a way to use
those products.
What I think I need is the "Perry Purse" I described yesterday. Forget
trying to be ITSO (or any single standard) compliant. Or even one
banker. Have something that's a chameleon and adapts to the requirement
(with either several chips, or an adaptable one), and which can give me
readouts of all the various balances (either in prepay, carnets, or
available-to-spend if credit). And with increasing amounts of
International travel, it's perhaps the only way to have something that
also pays for your metro ticket in Paris or New York (always assuming
those places end up with *some* sort of contactless system eventually).
--
Roland Perry