| dc.description.abstract | A review of the history of the economic development of mankind, the improvements in payment tools result in increased transactions and safer trade. Ease of use and low transaction costs are the critical success factors of a payment tool. With these two conditions fulfilled, the “EasyCard” issued by the Taipei Smart Card Corporation (TSCC), has been widely accepted as an effective payment tool for transportation related transactions in metropolitan Taipei.
However, due to current legal restrictions, the use of EasyCard is strictly limited to public transportations and parking. In order to extend the service of EasyCard into non-transportation sector, TSCC entered in a strategic alliance with four local banks, which issue co-Branded EasyCards. The co-Branded EasyCard has three functions, namely, EasyCard, EasyCash and Credit Card. However, bounded by the afore mentioned legal restriction, and since TSCC and the banks are governed by different departments of the government, the current co-Branded EasyCard has two separate electronic wallets on one card: EasyCard wallet and EasyCash wallet. The two wallets are independent and the balance amount in the wallets are un-interchangeable. This becomes a severe limitation of the co-Branded EasyCard, since not only are the cardholders confused, the cards are hard to use, there are two separate transfer charges for fund transfers into the wallets, and there is a much higher risk in case of a card loss.
This study proposes a “single-processing-center” business model. Based on this model, there is only one single electronic wallet, that combines both the functions of EasyCard and EasyCash wallets. A feasibility study of this model, including cost-benefit, market, legal and technical dimensions, is also presented. In the economic feasibility analysis, to the usage information related to the Octopus Card in Hong Kong is used as a major reference.
The proposed business model adopts well-developed technology, and is shown to be legally viable. Compare with the current business model, the analysis also shows that the proposed business model provides considerable benefit to the stake holders involved, namely, TSCC the EasyCard owner, the banks which issue the new combined card, and the card users. The business model not only requires fewer manpower, it uses simplified process, and cheaper and safer to run, and generated more income for TSCC. | en_US |