The banks and their cards are feeling the pinch, but the rise and mutation of their smart plastic cousins means you don’t have to wince every time you reach into your pocket.
SCMP didn’t take it. They wanted something on discount cards and I went outside the brief. Whatever.
Hard economic times or not, there is always a race to get your plastic down quicker than anyone else at the restaurant table. Beginning with the cartoon sight-gag of a roll of cards tumbling out of the wallet like a step ladder, fellow diners weigh-up the distinctive value of each progressive slap of the cards on the table. And like the face-value of an ace at the poker table, an Aeon Hello Kitty MasterCard frequently brought the scene to a giggling climax. But that was yesterday, when credit was the only way to pay, baby.
Long entrenched as a successful marketing ploy by the banking sector – the Hello Kitty card gave rise to a 30 percent rise in Aeon’s card adoption through to 1999 – character cards where a boon. During long periods of financial instability, like right about now, the banking industry has observed that the volume of credit card transactions – 15 percent of all private spending in Hong Kong during 2002 – shrinks as belts tighten across the board.
Our reliance on electronic purchasing, and Kitty, has become so convenient and insatiable though that the very thought of proffering cash is unnerving. With a return to financial sanity, new types of cards are bounding alternately lop-eared, chic or playfully individual into the little leather restaurant payment pouch, this time far from the scrambling hordes of credit collection agencies.
“We do not compare, do not want to be compared, to credit cards or any special discount cards. We are a pre-paid smart card. It’s like cash without fumbling for coins,” says Cindy Cheng, Sales and Marketing Director of Octopus Cards Limited, whose tentacles currently cover 90 percent of all Hong Kong residents over the age of 15. A background as Vice President of the Hong Kong Information Technology Federation is another of her trump cards.
Far from confined to their original brief as a transport payment card, Octopus has expanded its pre-paid, rechargable format to 170 different service providers including 7-Eleven and Circle K convenience stores, Maxims and Starbucks cafes, cinemas and over 4,000 vending machines. Hong Kong’s 6.4 million residents perform over 8 million transactions per day through the Octopus network, its ubiquitous orange design Octopus anonymous cards account for 8 million of the 9.4 million cards in circulation, with personalized and a new form of character and co-branded card, the Special – or S-card – Octopi picking up momentum.
Getting scent of the current move away from credit, banks and credit institutions have quickly picked up the trend. Mevas Bank, a subsidiary of Dah Sing Financial, was one of the early adopters of the S-card service by offering co-branded Mevas and Octopus smart cards with their Precious Moments character. Separate cards, though obviously aiming to keep the bank brand firmly in the eyesight and grasp of an everyday Hong Kong resident through troubled times, banks can maintain their presence while people feel compelled to leave the credit card at home.
Chickeeduck, the children’s clothing chain with the cute duck moniker and character, further feeds the need for our addiction to plastic with its Chickeeduck Visa, separating again its Lifetime VIP. Chickeeduck marketing’s Eric Chan says both are successful for different reasons, most likely in that the safe-from-abuse VIP card – with its generous discounts and loyalty program – could easily be given to a child or teen to buy their own clothing, cutting cash and credit out of the equation.
“The system works very well for schools as it eliminates all cash from the system,” Octopus Card’s Cheng said. Schools have been quick to adopt the smart card and Octopus systems as ways to allow electronic access to buildings, record attendance, pay for meals and books and of course, travel expenses to and from school. “The abuse of fake coins in schools has also been eliminated,” she said.
Not so far from the new smart technologies embedded in cards, but with the same intense targeting of their customers, privilege and affinity cards are undergoing a similar renewal as people feel less shy about shaving a few dollars off their spending while not losing step. As CEO of Shama Serviced Apartments in Hong Kong, and in the industry for over 10 years, Elaine Young knows very well what her customers are looking for – the prestige and access afforded her clients with an incentive to two.
Shama’s No Boundaries card offers residents, frequently 28 days to largely 6-9 month residents in Hong Kong “a fast track to a lifestyle,” says Young, who knows through constant contact with new residents that Hong Kong can be a daunting and largely subterranean city to a newcomer. Complete with memberships to exclusive clubs and health clubs, restaurant savings, and beauty offers, in an arsenal of available cards for the busy traveler – along with a map – “it’s where we want them to go,” she says. It goes to show that it doesn’t matter how smart your card is, some simple audience targeting is still required, be it Kitty or Moet.
Which card to play all comes down to the situation, says Cindy Cheng. “I mean, can you imagine having to put your card into a slot on the MTR? You’d have a riot,” she says of the contactless nature of the Octopus Card. The applications, as well as the grand or garish designs of these seemingly innocent slices of plastic will continue to mutate as electronic chips get smaller and applications advance, combining and separating functions as the market demands and as new fads arise. With the Hong Kong government’s Smart Identity Card System, or SMARTICS, just around the corner, your own card is going to get awfully close to a lot of cards smarter and prettier than you. Best get a good photo done this time.
South China Morning Post is a Hong Kong newspaper.
