It is common that foreigners take advantage of public transportation upon travel in Taiwan, so the market of electronic stored value cards springs up with these increasing demands gradually. As a result, each electronic card company starts to cooperate with banks and other electronic stored value card companies to issue co-branded cards.

According to “Act Governing Issuance of Electronic Stored Value Cards”, Electronic stored value card shall mean an IC chip, card, certificate or other forms of debt obligation that uses electronic, magnetic or optical means to store monetary value and performs the function of data storage or computing, and is used for multiple payment purposes. Current accessible electronic stored value system is included Easy Card, iPass, iCash and Happy Card.

As of the end of May in 2020, the number of electronic stored value cards have been issued about 13,260 pieces by the electronic stored value entity from the statics of Financial Supervisory Commission. The highest usage rate amount these card is Easy Card in 70% and rest of each in 10%.

Here is the brief introduction about these four kinds of electronic stored value certificates:

1. Easy Card
   
   Easy Card was issued by its branded company and accessible in Taipei Metro on June in 2002, which is available to public transportation of each area in Taiwan. The accessible public transportation systems are included Taiwan Railway, Taiwan High Speed Rail, Taoyuan MRT, Kaohsiung MRT, and buses in each county. In addition, Easy Card is also usable in convenient stores, cooperative stores, taxies, and government authorities.
   
   In 2016, Easy Card broadened its accessible coverage to Kaohsiung MRT and made an  cooperative agreement with Kaohsiung MRT and Easy Card Company, so it is available for users to top up their value of card on the counter in each station. On March in 2020, Easy Card company to initiate Easy Pay system and the automatic top-up function was activated to reach the contactless payment during this pandemic situation.
   
   
2. iPASS
   
   iPASS was issued by its branded company and approved to operate the integration of electronic stored value card and payment businesses by Financial Supervisory Commission on July in 2017. In the meantime, iPASS cooperated with communication app company “LINE” to issue a co-branded card “LINE pay iPASS”, which aims to provide costumers with payment through online shopping platform, convenient stores, public transportation, government charges, fast food restaurants.
   
   
3. iCash
   
   iCash is a prepaid top-up card issued by iCash Corp. This card can be substitute for changes to proceed users’ payment. iCash can be topped up and proceeded payment through convenient stores. In 2014, iCash was upgraded iCash2.0 and the original version was terminated in 2019.
   
   
4. HappyCash
   
   HappyCash was issued by Yuan Hsin Digital Payment Co., Ltd., which is accessible among the following 7 placements: departments (Far East, SOGO), supermarkets (A Mart, OK, Hi-Life, CitySuper), telecommunication (Far Eas Tone), public transportations (Kaohsiung MRT, Taipei MRT), Medical care, and tourism (Shangri-La's Far Eastern Plaza Hotel, Taipei Zoo)

In conclusion, the most popular stored value card is EasyCard in Taiwan, which cooperates with Taipei MRT to issue monthly ticket as well as provide users with more and more preferences on public transportations. Besides, Easy Card and iPASS collaborate with many banks to issue the co-branded cards. It is also applicable for credits card to combine the stored value function to use. Top 4 convenient stores in Taiwan are 7-11, FamilyMart, Hi-Life, and OK. The most common ones are 7-11 and FamilyMart, so if the users take advantage of public transportations and shop in convenient stores regularly, it is suggested to purchase iCash for multiple purposes.