Update on Mondex ...
E-cash pilot project gets spring launch in Quebec
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1998
BY ALISON MACGREGOR (Special to the Ottawa Citizen)
MONTREAL -- Consumers will soon be able to withdraw and deposit electronic cash from home with the help of a new plug-in device that converts home telephones into automated banking machines.
Designed by Aastra Technologies Ltd., with technology from AudeSi Technologies Inc., the device will use the Mondex electronic cash card system. Royal Bank of Canada and Caisse Desjardins will test the technology next spring on their customers in Sherbrooke, Que.
Paul Bimm, the senior manger who manages the smart-card project for Bell Canada, called the new system the "key to the future." "Not only can you do some background transactions -- you have a banking machine in your home," he said.
Cash cards store money on an embedded computer ship. Cardholders can add money onto their cards from bank accounts, ATMs and the new Aastra enhanced-telephone system. The announcement of the project comes as a two-year Mondex project in Guelph winds up on Dec. 31 that involved 12,000 cards and more than 5,000 merchants. City buses, parking meters and vending machines were modified to take Mondex. As well, limited banking transactions were made on Bell Vista 360 telephones. Roughly $3 million worth of purchases were put on the cards.
But consumers said that having three cards -- debit, smart and a credit card -- was too confusing. A new hybrid card functioning as a debit and smart card will be used in the Sherbrooke project. And the new telephone device promises to speed up the banking processes.
"It used to take two to three minutes or even longer just to withdraw $5 or $10," Said Francis Shen, chairman and CEO of Aastra. "We're looking at having it done within 30 seconds." Customers will be able to withdraw electronic cash, make electronic cash deposits, pay bills, check balances and transactions, and make person-to-person transfers. For example, a parent would be able to transfer a child's allowance money to a card.
The rest of the major banks are expected to become involved in 2000.
Mark Quigley, an analyst at the Brockville-based Yankee Group, said that the smart card is ideal for small purchases on the Internet. "I really do see it as an exploding marketplace and most definitely the smart card is going to be there," said Mr. Quigley.
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