NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Another of Italy’s major cities has launched open-loop fare collection, with Turin enabling customers to pay for rides on its one-line metro and certain bus routes by tapping their contactless EMV credit and debit cards, along with smartphones and smartwatches supporting NFC payments services.
Turin, Italy’s fourth largest city, follows the country’s two largest cities, Rome, which launched open-loop payments last year; and Milan, which launched in 2018. In addition, Naples, Italy’s third largest city, and two smaller nearby cities, plan to launch the open-loop service later this year, according to plans announced last November, although it's not certain to hit that deadline. But the Covid-19 pandemic, which hit Italy hard earlier this year, does not seem to have postponed plans by transit agencies. For example, Turin launched its rollout on schedule this month following an earlier pilot.
The Italian cities are among several in Europe that see the benefit of giving customers the option to pay with their contactless bank cards and NFC wallets. That started with London, which fully rolled out its groundbreaking open-loop service in 2014. Since then, several other cities in the UK and Turkey have launched support along with agencies in Kiev, Moscow, Madrid and, late last month, Brussels, among others in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific.
