Skånetrafiken, the transit agency serving one of Sweden’s largest counties, announced today it has expanded its contactless open-loop payments service to include the Express Mode feature for Apple Pay.
While the majority of its customers use 2D barcode-based mobile ticketing, the agency said the new Apple Pay feature would make it simpler for customers to pay with their NFC-enabled iPhones. With Express Mode, riders don’t have to authenticate themselves with Touch ID, Face ID or by entering a passcode to pay and can still tap in or out when battery power is very low. Some transit agencies in such other countries as the U.S., Japan, China and the UK also offer Express Mode with either open- and closed-loop virtual cards.
The city of Turku in Finland launched the Express Mode feature earlier this year. But Skånetrafiken notes that it was the first transit agency in the Nordic region to launch contactless payments, in general, with bank cards and NFC wallets, starting in December 2019. Skånetrafiken rolled out the contactless service with integration from a division of Swedish telco Telia and readers supplied by Estonia-based Ridango.
