POSB's fare-free Friday initiative to benefit 100,000

SINGAPORE – Some 100,000 commuters will be able to travel for free on trains and buses every Friday till the end of the year, under the POSB’s “Fare Free Friday”’ initiative to mark SG50.

Commuters who want to get these free rides will have to link their POSB Everyday Credit Cards or PAssion POSB Debit Cards with EZ-Reload, which allow their cards to be topped up automatically.

The offer, which begins this Friday (July 31), will benefit 50,000 commuters who are currently holding the cards that are linked with EZ-Reload. Other commuters will have to be among the first 50,000 to link either of the two cards to EZ-Reload in order to benefit from the offer.

Announcing this today (July 28), Mr Jeremy Soo, managing director and head of consumer banking group (Singapore) at DBS Bank, said: “This is a special year for Singapore and we want to take this opportunity to celebrate with our customers and thank them for their continuous support of POSB over the years.”

Commuters can expect to save an average of about S$15 every month under the initiative. The bank could not say how much the initiative will cost, but Mr Soo said it is part of DBS’ S$100 million SG50 programme.

DBS Group Holdings has already given S$1,000 to each of its 18,000 employees to commemorate both Singapore’s 50th birthday, as well as for the company reaching S$50 billion in market capitalisation.

In response to TODAY’s queries on whether the public transport system is prepared to handle the possible higher load arising from the POSB initiative, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) said: “We will monitor the response to the initiative, but we expect the impact to be minimal as commuters would be spread throughout the PT network, as well as throughout the entire day.”

It added that about 6 per cent of all top-ups are done during transit, that is via auto top-ups.

Both the POSB Everyday Credit Card and  PAssion POSB Debit Card double up as EZ-link cards, which commuters can use to pay for their daily transport fares, on top of the cards’ payment functions.

By enabling EZ-Reload on their cards, commuters will be able to enjoy a seamless auto top-up experience, which will help save them from the hassle of queuing.

As part of the “Fare Free Friday” initiative, all EZ-Reload top-up fees for DBS/POSB cards and ATM top-up fees will be waived permanently.

Participating commuters will get a 100 per cent rebate of the public transport fares they pay during the “Fare Free Friday”, which will be credited to their bank accounts the following month.