NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, or SEPTA, in Philadelphia plans to introduce open-loop payments of fares, with a pilot scheduled for around June, a spokesman confirmed to NFC Times. It makes SEPTA part of a small but growing number of U.S. transit agencies that are accepting payments of fares from contactless bank cards and NFC wallets or are planning to do so.
SEPTA’s open-loop payments service has long been delayed, with officials originally planning to accept contactless bank cards and NFC smartphones directly for fares on board buses and at subway gates as far back as late 2013, long before U.S. banks began issuing contactless EMV credit and debit cards and even before Apple Pay first launched.
Although SEPTA’s closed-loop contactless Key Card, which launched in 2016, sports a Mastercard-branded prepaid contactless application that can be used for retail purchases, this open-loop application cannot be used for fare payments. Riders use a separate Key Card e-purse on the card to pay fares.