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Near Field Communication and all contactless technology

NFC Times Exclusive – Both Apple and Transport for London are trumpeting the coming use of Apple Pay to pay fares on various modes of mass transit in London, including the fast-paced London Underground. But they face a couple of problems.

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 has made good on its years-long endeavor to accept open-loop contactless payment on the London Underground and its other modes of transit, clearing the way for what is expected to be millions of yearly contactless transactions from bank cards and later, NFC mobile phones.

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.

Transport for London has launched a key user trial as it gears up to accept fares on the London Underground and its other modes of transport from contactless EMV credit and debit cards, and for the first time is beginning to sound more positive tones about possibly accepting payments from NFC phones.

Five or six years ago, transit ticketing was predicted by many to become first big application service providers would launch when NFC rolled out commercially.

In about two weeks, Transport for London expects to record its one-millionth ride paid for by contactless bank cards, and the authority says it’s on track to hit its deadline for launching open-loop fare collection on the rest of its transit network, including the busy London Underground, by the end of the year.

Visa Europe predicts the UK will have 34 million contactless Visa-branded cards on issue and 175,000 contactless terminals deployed by the end of 2013, with Europe reaching 70 million Visa-branded contactless cards and 650,000 contactless terminals this year.

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.

Transport for London plans to begin allowing riders to use contactless bank cards to pay fares on buses later this week, according to a report.