What future for electronic purses?

This Chapter tries to answer the question whether there is a long-run future for electronic purses, and, if so, which form it might take. To that end, the second Section presents and analyses data on the recent performance of European E-Purses. Section 3 subsequently broadens the scope by looking at a number of non-European cases. A central question here will be whether having an initial foothold outside the retail sector - public transport in the case of Octopus, electronic road pricing for the CashCard in Singapore - makes it easier to penetrate the retail sector compared to other purses that have had to start from scratch. Section 4 then compares the technology used by the first wave of (European) E-Purses with that used by some of the newer schemes, and shows that the latter have a number of features that enable them to overcome some of the disadvantages of 'traditional' E-Purses and cash alike. Section 5 concludes.