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Advanced Card Systems Ltd. this week introduced a smart card reader that supports a transit- and retail-payment scheme in Singapore, the Hong Kong-based vendor says in a statement. The company's ACR122 reader supports the electronic-purse scheme operated by EZ-Link Pte. Ltd. and backed by the Land Transport Authority of Singapore. The contactless cards enable consumers to pay transit fares and make retail payments, though retail payments still account for a minority of transactions, according to the latest data from EZ-Link. The scheme has tested payments using Near Field Communication, a short-range wireless technology, and Advanced Card Systems says the reader is compatible with NFC devices. Consumers can use the readers to manage their ez-link cards from home, the Hong Kong firm says. Consumers can "check and print out the most recent 20 transaction records" from their ez-link accounts, add value to those accounts via funds transfers from bank accounts, load coupons onto their cards and, eventually, make online retail transactions, Advanced Card says. The company says it launched the first version of the reader in 2007.
