Smart Cards

deRanged

has anyone used their id as a smart card?

I noticed in the canteen here in the WGB that you can now pay at the till with one, and 2 of the vending machines only accept smart cards now, no cash!

it looks like I'd have to trek up to main campus to put money on mine too, which is a bit of a dose.

EoghanIRL

I put a fiver on mine today .
I will mainly use it for printing etc ..
Not sure how advantageous it is really .

SpaceTime

It's mostly handy for the vending machines or if you want to set a budget.
Seems the entire campus now takes it.

EoghanIRL

I presume in a way it's to stop dealing with cash and coins because they are unhygienic .
Also instead of dealing with cash they can now deal with virtual payment .
I wonder how ucc will benefit in the long run seeing as there must be some initial investment needed on their behalf in regards to the machines etc...

SpaceTime

They may be getting a small % of the transactions.

A lot of retailers forget that processing cash costs money too. Banks charge to accept coins.

For UCC it might make some cost savings to get you to preload a card rather than deal with coins.

It's also a way of offering card payment for small values without paying visa and MasterCard for contactless payments.

magicianz

It's also worth noting that they require you to block your card if it is stolen or lost.

To re-activate the card costs 5 euro.

SpaceTime

Well, I suppose just treat it like cash.

If you lose your wallet and someone takes the cash out if it, you can't really block that either.

Also, it's fairly safe as if someone did steal it they'd have to use a card with your photo on the front. It's going to look EXTREMELY dodgy.

All of UCC's Staff and Student ID cards are photo ID.

There's always been a nominal administration fee for replacing the cards as far as I'm aware.

I would guess UCC has about 18,000 students + staff and researchers.

EoghanIRL

The days of carrying physical currency will be obsolete in the future .
Is it true that you won't be able to use cash in ucc soon ? Once the smart card is fully integrated .

SpaceTime

EoghanIRL wrote: »

The days of carrying physical currency will be obsolete in the future .
Is it true that you won't be able to use cash in ucc soon ? Once the smart card is fully integrated .

I doubt it.

The days of carrying physical currency will still be around as long as AIB, Bank of Ireland and others continue to charge crazy fees for using your debit card.

It's currently about 20c / transaction unless you've met their T&Cs about having large balances in your current account.

KBC offer free banking but you can't lodge cash to their accounts without going through another bank first. They've no cash services other than ATM withdrawals.

All the technology's in place nationally - chip and pin, online processing, contactless cards but they insist on hampering it with huge fees both for retailers and end users than I see regular reports coming out blaming "culture" on the reason that Ireland has relatively low adoption of electronic payments.

The culture is quite simply an expectation that the banks will gouge you with high fees if you use your card.

I think UCC's vending machines no longer take cash, but I don't think the retail outlets will stop taking cash.

What they could start doing is offering card-only discounts though and it would be a way of preventing non-UCC students/staff from availing of student discounted prices without closing the campus to them.

magicianz

SpaceTime wrote: »

Well, I suppose just treat it like cash.

If you lose your wallet and someone takes the cash out if it, you can't really block that either.

Also, it's fairly safe as if someone did steal it they'd have to use a card with your photo on the front. It's going to look EXTREMELY dodgy.

All of UCC's Staff and Student ID cards are photo ID.

There's always been a nominal administration fee for replacing the cards as far as I'm aware.

I would guess UCC has about 18,000 students + staff and researchers.

Honestly, they won't bother checking the cards within the next few weeks. The student staff in Student Centre won't care about doing their jobs properly because the management is so aggressively regressive.

The fee for replacing the card is 20 euro as it was last year, I believe it may have been raised from the year before that but don't quote me on that! This 5 euro unblocking fee is an additional charge for a system that could easily be automated quickly, though I imagine UCC's internal AD system and such is archaic as **** given the proverbial iron curtain that surrounds it's functionality.

20,600 was the figure I got last year, not including staff and researchers I believe that was! We qualify as a little city by now I'm sure! Not a big one....just a little one!

EoghanIRL

Why did they actually introduce it ?

magicianz

EoghanIRL wrote: »

Why did they actually introduce it ?

I'm assuming to try to reduce cash handling times and get rid of queues. Though like most things they attempt, they **** up. To the best of my knowledge, WGB has no top-up stations at all and all of their vending machines are smart card only. Because smart.

SpaceTime

You can top up with a debit card online in about 2 seconds. Log in via the the student portal site.

Eurovisionmad

SpaceTime wrote: »

You can top up with a debit card online in about 2 seconds. Log in via the the student portal site.

Put €10 on yesterday online, bank says the transaction went through, still waiting for it to turn up on my card, and nobody has been able to make the vending machines work in Brookfield as of yet!

SpaceTime

Eurovisionmad wrote: »

Put €10 on yesterday online, bank says the transaction went through, still waiting for it to turn up on my card, and nobody has been able to make the vending machines work in Brookfield as of yet!

You need to stick your card into any online reader like a vending machine or any of the readers on the student centre desk or a retail outlet. The upload happens then. It's similar to how Oyster Card reloads work.

Vending machines :

Stick card in and leave it in.

Select item

Done.

They need better instructions.

deRanged

I think the cards will be very handy in the canteen in the morning when you don't have change, and neither do they at the till.
Next time I'm on main campus I'll put some money on mine for that - but I can't see myself using it apart from that. Unless the car park machines start to take them - that'd be handy. Save me having loads of 2 euro coins in the car

EoghanIRL

It is very handy for printing .

Except I used a printer today which turned out to be out of order so my slides didn't print. Had to get a refund and also you have to go and press print again. Very annoying .