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With a saturated market of available credit cards, offerings need to provide increasingly more value-added features with their cards to differentiate themselves from the similar basic functionality offered by all credit cards. But with so many added features being offered in such a wide range of forms it is hard to know if these features are really adding any practical value to the user.
One of the most popular added features offered to customers is rewards points based on a percentage of the value of purchases made. Riders have a wide variety of options to choose from when it comes to paying to use OCTranspo. These options include cash, tickets, and the presto card. Each offers of these three options offer riders different ways to pay for their transit use. Unfortunately there is one powerful option that is missing from the system which would make Presto a nearly unbeatable way to pay for public transit.
Cash and ticket options have been available to riders for many years, where as Presto is a relatively new and untested way to pay for rides on OCTranspo. With the expiry of my U-pass in May I have begun to use my Presto card for the first time since it’s launch. Thankfully, while there are a few minor issues I have found with Presto, I have only one major concern: payment options.
When I went to register and setup my Presto card I was presented with three different payment option: manual top-up, Monthly Pass, and Autoload, none of which seemed to my liking. US consumers alone purchased $38.8 billion worth of goods using their mobile devices in 2013, a number which is only expected to rise. While consumers are eager to make payments with their mobile devices few of these purchases were processed through traditional payment terminals due to the lack of compatible infrastructure.
This lack of support is not because companies are uninterested. With profits growing every year everyone wants to get in on the huge potential of this market.