NFC TIMES Exclusive – One of the key battlegrounds for Apple, Google and Samsung as they seek more users for their respective Pays wallets is transit ticketing–with all three tech giants targeting both open-loop payments and–perhaps surprisingly–also closed-loop transit cards. (See table below).
This strategy has become increasingly clear in recent months, including with Apple’s announcement in late March that it would support transit ticketing in three U.S. cities, New York, Chicago and Portland, Ore., later this year. In two of those cities, Chicago and Portland, Apple will add acceptance for closed-loop cards, with Apple Pay–and other Pays wallets–already accepting open-loop payments in these cities.
Apple plans to enable Apple Pay users to load closed-loop Ventra cards in Chicago and Hop Fastpass cards in Portland in their Apple wallets, which would also mean that the applets for these cards would be loaded onto the embedded secure elements in Apple’s NFC devices–iPhones and Apple Watches.
