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Octopus is such an extraordinarily useful system; it may genuinely be the part of day-to-day life in HK that I miss the most. The cards are stored value, so tr
by culturestate 4y ago
Octopus is such an extraordinarily useful system; it may genuinely be the part of day-to-day life in HK that I miss the most.
The cards are stored value, so transactions happen instantly and can be automatically reloaded from a credit card. They also support non-payment-related functions, so you can e.g. register your Octopus as a building access card and not have to carry around a separate token.
- declon 4y agoThis all applies to London Oyster, too.
- culturestate 4y agoReally? I only lived in London briefly years ago, but I can’t remember ever coming across Oyster in any non-transit setting. Maybe it’s like Suica in Tokyo? Technically capable of the same stuff but rarely deployed in practice. Octopus, in contrast, is almost literally everywhere (except most taxis, sadly). You can use it to buy everything from groceries to petrol.
- jrockway 4y agoPretty much all convenience stores accept Suica. It's much closer to Octopus than Oyster.
- Symbiote 4y ago> Technically capable of the same stuff but rarely deployed in practice. Exactly. I doubt it's been accepted anywhere since contactless Visa/Mastercard was introduced in the UK about 2007.
- frosted-flakes 4y agoWhy though? What's wrong with a normal bank card?
- bobthepanda 4y agoLess cards to carry. Also, technically, Octopus is a very special bank card, as it's regulated by the HKMA and has a deposits license.