The Octopus Card is the preferred method of payment for just about EVERYTHING on campus at CUHK.
Really.
Trains, buses, coffee shops, canteens, supermarkets, the university bookstore, plus lots and lots of other places outside the Uni prefer Octopus Card. Basically the OC acts as a debit card. You insert your OC in to a special machine (present at most train stations, inc. the University Station), insert HK $50 or $100 bills ONLY (the machines don't take $500 bills, but you can ask for change at the service desk of the station) and presto! Money to burn. There are also separate machines where you can check the balance of your OC. Also when you swipe your OC to enter/exit a station, some of the newer turnstiles will show you the cost of your trip and your balance on the screen).
The Good
#1: Accepted almost everywhere to pay for anything.
#2: A standard transaction time of 1 second in shops and 0.3 seconds for public transport. This is much quicker than when paying by credit card because the Pay-and-Go/PayWave function is not widespread and normally you have to either enter your PIN or sign for the transaction.
#3: Uni students pay only half the price of an adult fare on the MTR. Pretty sweet.
The Bad
#1: Unlike a credit card, it has very little security. There is no PIN, and you don't have to sign for purchases (acts like PayWave in this respect). What about if you put some money on your OC to pay for your textbooks and some groceries, but you loose your card on the way? Too bad. YOU are liable for any transactions someone else may have made for the first 3 hours after you have reported your card missing.
#2: For those of us who have a Travel Money card or NAB Travel Card where we don't get charged any fees at POS, but sometimes get charged fees when taking money out at ATMs, the process of re-loading one's OC is pretty annoying.
#3: It is not as easy to keep track of your spending. You can only view the last 10 transactions on the machines at the station, and there is no way of going online (like with online banking) to track the amount and location of your purchases.
The Ugly
It takes a month to get the Student OC.
On the day I arrived I filled in the paperwork required for CUHK to endorse my application for a Student Octopus Card. Two days later it was endorsed, so I took said paperwork to University Station. Apparently it takes a minimum of one month for my 'personalised' OC to be ready for collection, but in the mean time, would I like to PURCHASE a temporary OC for $170HKD? Um, well yes. I need it.
My temporary card
Awkward Situation...
When trying to purchase $500 worth of textbooks from the bookshop today, the girl tried my credit card, then said "the machine is not working. Can you pay with Octopus?" I said "uh, no". Its kind of scary when they don't seem to mind that their credit card reader isn't working. I ended up only paying for one book with the cash I had on me. With the average train ride being about $5 to $10, would I want to keep $500+ on my card?
Who knows? Maybe I'll get used to the OC and when I get back to Australia I'll really notice that <1 second time lag at the check-out when paying by debit card. Maybe.
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