NFC TimesThe premier source for news, analysis and commentary on
Near Field Communication and all contactless technology

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.

NFC TIMES Exclusive – Interest continues among a number of transit authorities globally to move toward acceptance of contactless bank cards and NFC phones for fares, but rollouts have been happening in fits and starts in such countries as the U.S., where some cities there are deciding against accepting open-loop payments.

NFC Times Exclusive – While big city U.S. transit agencies in New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. continue to move toward launching open-loop fare collection, following Chicago, London and St. Petersburg, Russia, to the market, there will be few contactless credit or debit cards rolled out in the U.S. for their customers to tap at turnstiles or onboard buses anytime soon.

Transport for London today announced it would launch acceptance for open-loop bank cards and other contactless payment on its heavily traveled London Underground and other modes of transit in September, while the UK’s largest mobile operator, EE, announced customers could begin to tap their NFC phones to pay fares at the same time.

As large transit authorities in the U.S. prepare deployments of open-loop fare collection, they say they still need progress from the payments industry to make those deployments successful.

Transport for London officially announced the launch of the first phase of its open-loop payment service, allowing riders to tap their contactless credit, debit and charge cards to pay fares on more than 8,000 buses.

Chicago transit officials unveiled their planned open-loop fare-collection system, called Ventra, with plans to enable riders to tap to pay fares with contactless credit and debit cards, as well as reloadable MasterCard-branded prepaid cards.

Open-loop payment of transit fares continued to gain momentum with transit authorities in two large U.S. cities giving the green light to contract awards that will eventually enable riders to pay their fares directly with contactless bank cards and NFC phones.

Transit agencies in some of the largest cities in the United States and Europe are moving forward at varying speeds toward accepting credit, debit and prepaid cards to collect fares onboard buses and at metro gates.