A 25-YEAR-OLD neighbourhood centre at Tampines Street 11 is tapping into technology in a big way.
By the end of August, the 225 stalls and shops in Blocks 137, 138 and 139 will become the first in Singapore to sport cashless payment terminals.
Buyers of anything from fresh fish to a bowl of fishball noodles will be able to pay for their purchases with ez-link cards, other approved contactless cards and even credit cards.
There will also be a web portal, which will have information such as the stores' location and opening hours, and the kind of goods they sell.
Online commerce options will be available so people can make orders through the portal, pay and pick up the goods later.
Hawkers who are less educated will be helped by full-time staff at the service centre on the premises, who will collate the orders for them.
Eight of the market's stalls will test the new system from the end of this month to August. Local provider iCell Network started installing equipment to support the services yesterday.
A spokesman for the area could not say how much the project costs, as details are still being finalised.
Since it was built in the 1970s, Tampines New Town has been at the forefront of development.
It won the United Nations' World Habitat Award for excellence in housing design in 1993, and was the first housing estate to be wired for cable television in 1995.
In 2006, Wi-Fi connectivity was installed at the market so shoppers can surf the Internet on their phones or laptops for free.
Mr Soh Peck Kiat, chairman of the Tampines Street 11 Hawkers and Merchants Association, told The Straits Times that the plan to add e-payment services has been at the back of his mind since the market was upgraded three years ago. But the technology then was not robust enough, he said.
The bigger goal is to attract more customers, who in the past 10 years, have taken to frequenting modern malls such as nearby Tampines Mall and Century Square. That trend contributes to falling business at neighbourhood shops, he said.
Mr Soh, 57, the association's chairman of about 15 years, also wants to pull in a new breed of customers - tourists.
'With the website, people overseas can see what we are like, and make plans to visit us,' he said in Mandarin.
He added that if the area did not move with the times, 'we will always be looking at other people doing business, and not doing the business ourselves'.
