Contactless convenience

Take your kopi, flash your contactless CashCard at a NETS reader and off you go.

If buying a kopi were so simple for everyone, there would be no more queues at coffee shops during the morning rush hour.

That's what Rasa Rasa, a popular coffee shop at the Causeway, realised early on, and it has quickly reaped the benefits from its partnership with NETS.

The secret: contactless CashCards.

Realising that many of its clientele were motorists from both sides of the Causeway, Rasa Rasa owner Stephen Pang knew it made perfect sense to let people pay for their purchases - whether it's a cup of kopi or a plate of noodles - with their CashCards.

After all, the CashCard is used commonly to pay road toll and a must-have for motorists in Singapore.

Thus when he installed four contactless CashCard terminals at the Woodlands shop, he was not surprised how fast his customers took to the new technology. The reason? Convenience.

All that customers need to do is take out their contactless CashCards, which are becoming increasingly common, and flash at the NETS readers. The amount is automatically deducted from their cards.

For motorists in a rush, there's no more sticking a hand into the pocket to look for spare change. For Mr Pang and staff, they save time calculating and giving out change to folks looking for a quick "pick-me-up" kopi.

The time savings can even be quantified. Going by tests that NETS carried out, it takes no more than four seconds to collect payment with a contactless CashCard; with cash, this is about 14 seconds.

The benefits extend to the coffee shop's management of money as well. With payment automatically debited through NETS, Mr Pang and his staff do not have to personally head to the bank to deposit thousands of coins for these "micro-payments", or small payments.

The setup is so effective that Rasa Rasa is going to install two more readers at a Bedok outlet.

Its experience goes a long way to showing that everyday "micropayments" can be better transacted using NETS' convenient contactless CashCards - a new idea for many heartland coffee shops.

Mr Pang acknowledges that the technology has transformed Rasa Rasa into a "smart and cool" coffee shop. But more importantly, he stresses, is the fact that "contactless has given us a high-tech and convenient way to carry out our day-to-day operations."

He notes: "The payment process is easier as the processing time is much faster. We have seen an increase in customers to the shop and are able to serve them more efficiently."