Travel seamlessly with your bank card!

Last updated: 08 June 2017

Contactless EMV

We’ve talked before on the blog about how you can pay for public transport services with just the tap of a mobile phone or smartwatch. Our #MyNFCDay video series showed the impact it’s having on people in major cities across the world – London, New York, Singapore to name just a few. And we’ve seen a few other milestones in recent months and years.

Euro 2016 was one example of the potential of contactless technology. While the tournament will probably be remembered for Portugal’s shock victory and England’s hapless performance against footballing minnows, Iceland, for us the real highlight was Lille’s transport system embracing contactless wristbands. As a result, the city managed to cut queuing times and made travelling to and from stadiums more convenient.

In addition, the rise of mobile payment services like Apple Pay and Android Pay is revolutionizing the way we pay for services, whether it’s transport or food and drink. Samsung Pay is also growing rapidly. From May 16th, it’s been available on Transport for London, expanding the choice for customers. These NFC-enabled solutions all meet contactless ticketing standards, offering both speed and security.

As MasterCard has highlighted, there’s another fast-growing contactless option – EMV bank cards! If mobile or wearable payments are not for you, another alternative to the dedicated contactless travel pass includes using your EMV credit or debit card to pay for train or bus travel. The payment company has published a report showing 80 cities are now accepting EMV bank cards at public transport locations.

There are two types of banking card acceptance. Open-loop involves any contactless EMV banking card being accepted, while shared card acceptance, which involves payment and transport facilities being combined into a single unit. The latter requires specific bank card issuance and enables banks to enrich their proposition to consumers. We’re keen to see both adopted universally – for transport systems to provide more convenience, a sophisticated payment system accepting multiple NFC solutions is absolutely vital.

Whatever happens next, it’s clear that customers today are getting more choice over the way they pay with contactless technology. Long queues are finally being consigned to the history books.

Are you a contactless payment user? How useful do you find it? Let us know by tweeting to us at @Gemalto, or posting a comment below.

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