Barclays Bank, BBVA, JPMorgan, Royal Bank of Scotland and Paypal are among the firms to have been shortlisted as potential partners for Transport for London's (TfL) Oyster e-money project.
TfL says twenty companies initially replied to its request for proposals on extending the use of Oyster contactless transit passes to pay for low value purchases at retail stores in the capital.
The shortlisted companies include, alphyra, Barclays, PayPal, and RBS as well as three seperate consortia comprising BBVA/Accenture/MTR/Octopus, EDS/JPMorgan, and Nucleus/Dexit/Ericsson/Hutchison 3G/Euroconex.
Negotiations will proceed during the summer, and TfL expects to confirm a partner by the end of the year. Trials of the scheme will take place in late 2005 or early next year.
Jay Walder, managing director of finance and planning at Transport for London says: "The use of contactless smart cards for low value payments is growing in popularity around the globe. Such schemes are now well established in Hong Kong and Japan and significant trials are taking place in the United States."
He says Oyster has the largest customer base of all smart cards in the UK, with 2.2 million users and a significant level of public trust.
"Extending Oyster to include low value payments is a natural progression which will make the smart card even more convenient."