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As more transit agencies introduce open-loop fare payments, interest is starting to grow in use of white-label EMV cards that agencies can issue in place of proprietary closed-loop cards for riders who don’t have bank cards or don’t want to use them to pay fares.

Two more bus operators in Hong Kong on Saturday launched acceptance of open-loop contactless fare payments, with both also accepting QR code-based mobile ticketing–as the near ubiquitous closed-loop Octopus card continues to see more competition.

Indonesia’s capital Jakarta, whose metropolitan area is home to more than 30 million people, is notorious for its stifling traffic congestion. In response, the government metro and light-rail networks and now it is funding an expansion of the fare-collection system to enable more multimodal payments and to build a mobility-as-a-service platform.

Large Paris regional transit authority Île-de-France Mobilités is finally moving closer to supporting mobile ticketing on a range of Android phones using host-card emulation technology from Google, after having rejected the technology as not secure enough.

California transit agency Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District said it plans to launch a pilot of contactless open-loop payments in early 2022, as it seeks to increase customer convenience and reduce use of cash on board its buses, NFC Times' sister publication Mobility Payments has learned.