CEPAS, Specification for Contactless e-Purse Application is a significant milestone for Singapore's micro-payment landscape. A key pillar of the national ePayment infrastructure, outlined in IDA's 10 year infocomm masterplan, Intelligent Nation 2015 (iN2015), CEPAS is a result of a collaboration spearheaded by IDA working closely with the Land Transport Authority (LTA) and the industry to develop a cashless nation-wide e-payment platform. Developed by IDA with the Cards & Personal Identification Technical Committee (CPTIC) under the Singapore IT Standards Committee (ITSC), Network for Electronic Transfers Singapore Pte Ltd (NETS), and EZ-Link Pte Ltd, CEPAS was gazetted by SPRING Singapore in January 2006 as SS 518.
Available for industry use, CEPAS is a world's first in creating a nationwide interoperable micro-payment platform that bridges multiple sectors - in particular the transit and retail e-payment space.
CEPAS was formally announced by CEO IDA, Mr Chan Yeng Kit, during the "CEPAS Launch and Next Generation E-Payment Seminar", held at the Suntec City Convention Centre, Ballroom 3 on Tuesday, 27 June 2006, with close to 400 participants.
Today, the Singapore market has two widely used Multi-Purpose Stored Value Card (MPSVC) infrastructures that are non-interoperable, the NETS CashCard and ez-link card. The CEPAS standard provides an interoperable platform that our two largest MPSVC issuers, NETS and EZ-Link, will eventually migrate to.
Therefore, the launch of CEPAS is a significant step closer towards giving consumers the convenience of having a single card for making transit, motoring and retail payments instead of having multiple cards for different purposes. When fully adopted, consumers will be able to use one card seamlessly and safely in various payment scenarios.
Beyond just convenience to consumers, merchants and public service providers will be able to deploy a single reader for their transaction processing, as opposed to having multiple readers. CEPAS will also level the playing field allowing more card issuers such as banks and financial institutions to participate in this micro-payment space. Hence, CEPAS results in a "win-win-win" for consumers, merchants, as well as card issuers.
LTA has awarded to IBM the contract to build the core backend infrastructure for LTA's next-generation transit e-payment system - Symphony for e-payment (e-Symphony). The e-Symphony will incorporate CEPAS and allow the transit infrastructure to support multiple card issuers.
To facilitate the adoption and deployment of CEPAS compliant cards and readers, a CEPAS InterFest will be conducted by ITSC starting from Jan 2007. Parties who are interested to participate in the InterFest can also contact IDA at techview@ida.gov.sg.
Moving forward, IDA and our partners will continue to work together to provide consumers new and innovative e-payment solutions. Singapore will continue to invest in payments innovation, while at the same time ensure seamless interoperability among various payment platforms and minimise market fragmentation.