Transport Officials in Sydney See Growing Demand for Contactless Fare Payments but Have No Plans to Retire Closed-Loop Opal

(This premium article was originally published in January 2020. © Mobility Payments and Forthwrite Media.) Transport officials in Australia have released figures on use of contactless payments in Sydney and New South Wales, showing that customers tap their contactless credit and debit cards and NFC devices for an average of 1.5 million transactions per week, […]

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‘Frankly Outrageous’: Open-Loop Pioneer Says Interchange Fees for Transit Agencies Too High, Especially in U.S.

Phone at terminal in Santa Barbara

Shashi Verma, chief technology officer for Transport for London and the driving force behind the agency’s landmark open-loop payments service, called for greater regulation of interchange rates outside of the UK and European Union to reduce fees agencies pay. […]

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New York’s MTA Celebrates Billionth OMNY Transaction as It Seeks to Put Project Back on Track

NYC subway train

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority last week marked the billionth OMNY transaction, with MTA chairman and CEO Janno Lieber speaking at a press conference at the subway station where the landmark tap occurred. He touted the OMNY contactless open-loop payments program as an “amazing success.” […]

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Special Report: Despite Industry Push, Few Transit Agencies Rolling Out ‘Closed-Loop EMV’ So Far

OMNY cards

Transit agency Storstockholms Lokaltrafik, or SL, in Stockholm launched what is believed to be the industry’s first rollout of white-label EMV cards for its closed-loop customers in September 2021. To date it has issued around 1.5 million cards, which customers use frequently. […]

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