A government evaluation in April 2001 said problems with MASS...

A government evaluation in April 2001 said problems with MASS indicated ERG "has not met agreed schedules on a relevant project, despite their submission indicating that this was possible, achievable and expected.

"The risk that the development of MASS for the Sydney project will take longer than scheduled is increased," the report said.

In March 2001, the Sydney evaluation team was told by Californian consultants Booz Allen that San Francisco was not going to get the MASS system but a "modified version" of the Hong Kong clearing house. That same month, Wildermuth, under contract to the Government, told the team that Singapore would not be taking on ERG's MASS software. Sydney "would be a guinea pig for MASS", he said.

Today, not even Hong Kong uses ERG's clearing house system. It was replaced in 2005. Donald Cheung, senior manager, corporate communications, for Octopus Cards Ltd, told the Herald: "The Octopus Clearing House System, which is currently in use in Hong Kong and which we have installed for our client in the Netherlands, is developed by Octopus in-house."

Wildermuth says Singapore is following Hong Kong's lead in dumping its MASS system because "it's just too complex to maintain and any time you want to make changes it's very tedious and cumbersome".

While ERG still boasts publicly about its MASS technology, in the past two years it has progressively written off the value of the intellectual property associated with MASS. Once carried in ERG's books as having a value of $34 million, the software was written down to zero in June 2006.