Standardisation Connection: Vol 13 No 3

Launched on 27 June 2006 at an industry seminar, SS 518 CEPAS was developed by the Cards and Personal Identification Technical Committee of the IT Standards Committee, an industry partnership supported by SPRING Singapore and the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore.

Imagine using only one card to make payment when shopping, dining out, taking public transport and paying for road tolls. This will soon become a reality with the use of Singapore Standard for Contact-less e-Purse Application (CEPAS) or SS 518:2006.

SS 518 CEPAS provides the command sets or sets of command and data bytes that can be used for contactless e-purse applications and focuses on debit and credit areas. The standard will allow for interoperability of multi-purpose stored value card payment schemes such as the NETS CashCard and the ez-link card.

Launched on 27 June 2006 at an industry seminar, SS 518 CEPAS was developed by the Cards and Personal Identification Technical Committee (CPITC) of the IT Standards Committee (ITSC), an industry partnership sup-ported by SPRING Singapore and the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA). The key organisations involved in the development of the standard are IDA, Land Transport Authority (LTA), NETS and EZ-Link Pte Ltd.

Mr Lin Yih, Chairman of CPITC, a sub-committee under ITSC said, " Singapore places great emphasis on high security for electronic payments. We have decided to embark on this new standard which is a culmination of atomicity, speed of operation, signed receipt, partial refund, auto-load and cumulative debit."

Besides the convenience of having just one stored value card to pay for various transactions, SS 518 CEPAS will ensure better security in the usage of such cards. It will also level the playing field for card issuers, thus ensuring that consumers have more choices of service providers. Merchants will also be able to cut costs as there is no need to install different readers for different cards. All these will result in higher productivity and greater efficiency.

Already in the works, NETS is planning to roll out CEPAS-compliant Combi CashCard for mass market use later this year. The LTA is developing a new generation In-Vehicle Unit (IU) which will be able to accept other contactless smartcards besides the CashCard. The fare system for the Circle Line, which to be completed in 2010, will also incorporate the new standard. In addition, existing transit card readers will be changed to accept different cards. EZ-Link is also getting in on the act. It will working with LTA and its partner QB Pte Ltd to allow the ez-link card to be used for ERP and car parking payments.

"With the tremendous benefits that SS 518 CEPAS can bring to the industry, SPRING will work with ITSC, IDA, LTA and the industry to encourage more enterprises to use the standard," said Mr Teo Nam Kuan, Group Director, Quality & Standards, SPRING Singapore. "We expect that once the transit industry implements this standard, it will help to trigger other sectors to use this standard too." These sectors include the retail, hospitality and tourism industries.

For more information, visit www.spring.gov.sg/et or e-mail enterprisetoday@spring.gov.sg

To purchase SS 518 Contactless e-Purse Application, you may contact SNP Corporation Ltd at Tel: (65) 6826 9691, E-mail: singaporestandardseshop@snpcorp.com or visit the Singapore Standards eShop at http://www.singaporestandardseshop.sg for a list of other available standards.