NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – The Rio de Janeiro Metro has launched its planned open-loop payments service, one of the first Latin American transit systems to accept bank cards–in this case, Visa credit cards–directly for payment of rides.
It’s also the first transit system globally to use Visa’s new transit secure-access module, or SAM, in its acceptance terminals, a technology that could potentially help turn even low-end, closed-loop transit-ticketing terminals into terminals that can accept EMV-compliant cards and credentials on NFC phones, as NFC Times reported in March. But that would depend on the terminal, and transit agencies still need a back-office system to support open loop.