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The Netherlands gets nationwide contactless public transport payments system

The Netherlands has become the first country to launch a fully contactless public transport payments system nationwide.

Travelers in the country can now tap-in and tap-out with their debit card, credit card or digital wallet on all public transport across the country - including trains, buses, metros, and trams.

Developed by Translink, the OVpay open loop system saw public transport companies and Mastercard work to help local banks with implementing mobility transaction processing rules.

Jan-Willlem van der Schoot, country manager, Mastercard The Netherlands, says: "From now on, no need to separately buy tickets or miss your train because the balance on your public transport card is too low."

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Editorial | what does this mean?

This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community.

Comments: (3)

David Gyori - BANKING REPORTS, LONDON - London 08 June, 2023, 12:22

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I totally like this! I think transportation (including urban transportation), traveling are prime usecases for convenient and modern forms of payments. Very well done! My question is the following: Why is this built around VISA and MC, why not around iDeal, https://www.ideal.nl/en/ A2A (Account 2 Account) QR-ized payments. Why are VISA and MC involved? I am a great admirer and at the same time a great critic of large crad schemes.

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Ketharaman Swaminathan - GTM360 Marketing Solutions - Pune 09 June, 2023, 12:14

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I was amazed at the seamless connectivity across different modes of public transport in different cities of Germany. I could buy a single ticket for the full journey from my home in Frankfurt to my customer's office in Munich, a trip that straddled three companies operating a sum total of one long distance train, one U-Bahn, one S-Bahn and two tram connections. But, the way the ticketing system operated, I had to do some guesswork about zones and estimations of fares, which could go wrong.

I was then very impressed with tap-in-tap-out Oyster Card, which did the fare calculation by itself. But it was not useful beyond TfL public transport.

Assuming it's based on the Oyster Card paradigm, the Dutch ticketing system takes public transport payments to the next level.

Kudos to the folks who have made it possible.

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Ketharaman Swaminathan - GTM360 Marketing Solutions - Pune 09 June, 2023, 12:16

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@DavidGyori: Most probably, Visa + MasterCard would have agreed to invest big money to do free pilots etc. iDEAL may not have. When I was in London, Oyster Card supported prepaid and Visa / MasterCard modes. Does it support realtime PULL from FPS now?