The electronic purse is a device that can store money without a bank account. It allows the customer to make offline payments directly on the POS.
It is represented as a form of prepaid cards (smart card type), and can also be integrated through standardized techniques, on a wide variety of devices such as mobile phones.
Utility of E-Purse & Mobile Wallet
To banks
- Limit the need to provide bank notes and coins, whose management is much more expensive (counting, conservation, transportation, etc..) than data processing
- To reach a population that doesn’t have a bank account.
To merchants
- Reduce the management of cash (petty cash conservation, counting, handling, transportation, etc.).
- Limit the risk of cheques.
- Enjoy a lower cost than the general card. For some forms of distribution (vending machines, payphones transportation, parking, etc.)
To customers
- To make life easier by reducing the size of coins and bank notes.
- To avoid having to carry a card assigned to a type of service (parking, bicycle, canteen).
- Compensate temporary lack of cash.