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ajor lenders Bank Mandiri and Bank Central Asia (BCA) will have to open their prepaid card business to their counterparts following the revision of Bank Indonesia'€™s (BI) electronic money (e-money) regulation, which bans '€œexclusivity'€.

BI payment system executive director Rosmaya Hadi said that with the ban, Mandiri would have to allow other banks utilize its e-toll platform, which has been operated exclusively by the lender with state-owned toll operator PT Jasa Marga since 2009.

'€œThis [ban] is especially aimed at the public services sector, such as toll roads and parking,'€ Rosmaya told reporters during a media briefing recently.

At present, toll road users are only able to pay toll fees using Mandiri'€™s prepaid cards, consisting e-money, e-toll, Gaz and Indomaret cards.

By December 2013, the total number of its prepaid cards stood at 3.5 million. The prepaid transaction volume amounted to 113.4 million, equal to 82.2 percent of the domestic e-money transaction volume.

Meanwhile, Mandiri'€™s prepaid transactions generated Rp 1.51 trillion (US$132.18 million) in value for the state lender, accounting to more than half of the national e-money transaction value.

Rosmaya, however, added that BI respected any ongoing contract and that the ban would only be effective once the contract expired.

Mandiri senior executive vice president for transaction banking Rico Usthavia Frans said that its contract with Jasa Marga would end in 2018.

At the moment, Mandiri is working with state-owned lenders Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) and Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) to enable the two bank to use its toll-road payment platform this year. '€œSome BPDs [regional development banks] and other banks are in the pipeline as well,'€ he said.

When asked whether BCA'€™s inclusion was in the pipeline, Rico said that things were still under discussion.

Besides Mandiri, BCA is also another major player in the prepaid card or e-money business with its Flazz, launched in 2007. BCA has issued 5 million Flazz cards and controls the biggest share of the prepaid business in terms of card numbers.

BCA consumer banking director Suwignyo Budiman said that the private lender previously held an exclusive contract with PT Securindo Packatama Indonesia, which was the provider of parking services under the brand Secure Parking.

The contract has already ended and it has no exclusive partnerships currently, he added. According to Rosmaya, the regulation also required banks to enable system interoperability, so each bank'€™s electronic data capture (EDC) and prepaid card reader machines can facilitate the transactions of various cards. '€œBanks may charge a fee for the use of their EDCs and readers, but this will take time,'€ she said.