When the parking system started to move from cash to cashless, what are the significant differences besides the absence of physical currency? To be precise, the cash payment form is loosely attached to the parking system; the relationship is just in its tallying process. The complication of cash handling happens outside the parking system. After manually tallying the cash with the system, the off-system cash handling includes the risk of temporarily keeping the cash and transporting it to the bank by trusted personnel. Overall, it is a tedious daily routine.
In contrast, in a cashless system, the complication happens inside the system, where there is almost no “handling” job required for the cashless money after the system collects the fees. Instead, there are settlements between the bank/payment gateway provider and the parking owner/operator behind the scene, with the terms and conditions signed before adopting the cashless system.
TimeTec Group CEO Teh Hon Seng elaborated further on the complexity of cashless in parking systems, “Indeed, more security concerns when moving cash to a cashless system. The pivotal issues like protecting the electronic transaction data such as credit cards and mobile data between participating parties and avoiding the violation of personal data have to be addressed. The good thing is that all the related matters are taken care of in the highly regulated online payment system. For example, the use of credit cards in parking as cashless payment, it required The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard or PCI DSS compliance for its parking terminals.”
Teh Hon Seng explained the differences between cashless parking system and cashless merchant system, “It is far more complicated for a parking system to accommodate cashless payment than the normal merchant system. For example, the e-Wallet providers can go all out to acquire merchants. However, they can’t simply knock on the parking operators’ door and sign them up as merchants because the e-wallet must be seamlessly integrated with the parking access system. Besides, the parking transaction is not as simple as picking up merchandise and paying it according to the price tag when checking out. The date and time of a car entering a parking site have to be recorded, and the fee calculation is based on the duration and parking rate set by the parking owner when checking out. Furthermore, when the customers check in, the system has to verify the validity of the payment card and whether it has sufficient funds to pay when he/she checks out. That explains why the parking operator is charged a slightly higher MDR (Merchant Discount Rate) than normal merchants.”
The parking access cum cashless payment system flow is illustrated in the following diagram:
Touch ‘n Go card is one of its kind for parking payment systems. The payment process flow is almost similar to the credit/debit card, and it is more widely used than credit/debit card in Malaysia’s parking industry.
The main advantage of the above cashless payment system embedded into the parking access system is that there is no payment process between entry and exit.
When the License Plate Recognition or LPR is used as a parking access method, the cashless payment system is less attached. The common practice now is that the back-end parking system will link to an online payment portal consolidated with multiple payment methods. The customer can choose which payment method he/she prefers before exiting the parking site.
Teh Hon Seng said, “As one of the pioneers that provide cashless parking solutions, TimeTec Smart Parking System caters to all the above. Besides providing the unattended parking kiosk that combines Touch ‘n Go solution, credit/debit reader and QR code reader for e-Wallet into one kiosk, we are also an expert in LPR parking solution, and its payment system.”
Please contact Kelvin Lim, Sales Manager, at [email protected] or 012-6891180 for product presentation and demonstration appointments. You may also call 03-80709933 general line or write to [email protected] for more information.
Stay tuned for the 10/12 series next Wednesday on Malaysiakini for TimeTec Smart Parking announcement. For the previous article, click this link: TimeTec Parking 8/12: Cloud Season Parking System
Malay version: TimeTec Parking 8/12: Sistem Parkir Bermusim Berasaskan Awan
Chinese version: TimeTec智慧停车系统8/12：云月票停车系统
About TimeTec
TimeTec Group was established in 2000. Over 20 years, the Group had developed three homegrown globally recognized IT brands, FingerTec, TimeTec and iNeighbour, for workforce management, security, smart office, smart residential and smart township solutions unleashing the power of biometrics, cloud & edge computing, IoT and AI technologies. All these solutions connect and change the landscape of work life and home life in a larger ecosystem. Through a vast network, TimeTec Group distributes its biometric hardware products and 16 cloud applications, including IoT devices, to more than 150 countries worldwide. Visit our company websites: TimeTec Cloud, TimeTec Building, TimeTec Parking.
Various renowned clients have subscribed to TimeTec various solutions, including IOI Properties, Putrajaya Holdings, Ibraco, Binastra, Thriven, Hock Seng Lee, QSR Brands, Central Sugars Refinery CSR, Sunway Constructions, Mamee, Yakult, Nano Malaysia Berhad, and many more. The versatility and feasibility of TimeTec products also attract various international customers from all over the world, including Hong Kong, Dubai, Australia, Qatar, South Africa etc.
