December 1997, The first Mondex pilot in western Canada was launched in October in Regina.

The pilot is co-sponsored by Credit Union Central of Saskatchewan (CUCS), Credit Union Central of Canada and CUETS. Pilot participants include about 270 employees of CUCS and CUETS, Beaver Foods Cafeteria (which operates the cafeteria in the building shared by CUETS and CUCS in Regina) and ACE Credit Union, ACE serves employees of CUCS, CUETS, and other Saskatchewan credit unions, and will manage the Mondex value - the electronic cash - for the duration of the pilot.

"We have a number of pilot objectives in mind," says Bev Maxim, CUCS product manager, electronic account access. "We want to raise awareness of the product among our staff and within the credit union system in Saskatchewan, because Mondex e-cash will be something that credit unions, Central and CUETS staff will have to deal with in the future. We also want to position the credit union system as being leaders in the new technology before it becomes more generally available to people."

The CUCC/CUCS/CUETS Mondex pilot, running until the end of 1998, is a closed trial in that everything will take place in one building. Employees who volunteered to participate in the trial have been issued with trial Mondex cards that they can only use to make purchases at the office cafeteria. ACE Credit Union also operates a branch within the building.

Employees will be able to go to ACE Credit Union and ask the credit union to load their cards with up to $500 worth of value that they can then spend on their cafeteria purchases. When a purchase is made, special transaction equipment reads the value on the purchaser's card, debits the amount of purchase, and automatically transfers the value of the purchase amount on to the card of the vendor.

"It's a chip-to-chip transfer," says Greg Miller, CUETS' development manager of Merchant Products. "As soon as the amount is taken off my card, it goes onto the vendor's card. There is no need to authorize the transaction as would be the case with a typical credit or debit transaction."

Both Miller and Maxim expect an enthusiastic response from all trial participants. "Compared to cash, the Mondex card is fast and convenient to use for both the purchaser and the vendor. You don't need to wait for or make change. And the vendor doesn't have to count cash at the end of the day; all the transactions are handled electronically," says Miller.

Mondex e-cash may be even better than cash in some respects. "If you lose cash, it's gone. If you lose a Mondex card and it's locked with your personal password, it can't be used by anyone else. If it's found or returned to the credit union, you can unlock it and get your cash back.

The pilot is modelled after the Mondex trial in Guelph and is building on the Guelph experience to some extent. "For example, we're piggybacking on the support structure CUETS put in place for the Guelph trials, such as the helpline currently operated for the Mondex pilot in Guelph. That will now be extended to serve Saskatchewan pilot participants. We're also using the Guelph and Wellington Credit Union. For example, Marilyn Benson was a great resource for our training session."

Credit union branch procedures for the pilot were developed in part by CUCS. Marketing material developed by Credit Union Central of Canada are also being leveraged for the Mondex trial.