Wales issues tender for integrated national mobility app

Transport for Wales train pulling in at station

Transport for Wales (TfW) has issued a tender inviting suppliers to propose and develop a national Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) app that will enable door-to-door journey planning and payments for bus, rail, coach and taxi fares as well as for bicycle and e-scooter hire, car sharing and demand-responsive transport schemes... More



Transport for NSW to pilot Opal+ Mobility-as-a-Service app

Transport for NSW Opal Plus Mobility-as-a-Service app showing journey planner

Transport for NSW is to officially launch the digital version of its Opal transit card that enables passengers to pay fares by tapping a reader with their NFC smartphone or smartwatch and to begin trialling a Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) app that will let users plan, book and pay for multimodal journeys across both private and public transport services... More


Transit Ticketing Today

Qatar to roll out contactless fare payments across metro, bus, tram and taxi services

Qatar’s Ministry of Transport and Communications is to roll out an automated fare collection system as part of its Sila multimodal public transportation project that will enable passengers to make contactless payments for metro, bus, tram and taxi journeys with their debit or credit card, their Sila transit card or from their mobile device... More







What's New in Payments

Uber moves into financial services with new Uber Money division

Uber announces deeper push into financial services with Uber Money — CNBC — “The company announced on Monday the formation of a new division called Uber Money to house its efforts, which include a digital wallet and upgraded debit and credit cards. The emphasis, at first, will be expanding Uber’s efforts to give its four million-plus drivers and couriers around the world access to a mobile bank account so they can get paid after each ride. Uber could one day offer a bank account to consumers on its platform, according to Uber Money head Peter Hazlehurst.”






Transit Ticketing Today

Belgian transit operator to deploy open loop multimodal mobility-as-a-service platform

Flanders public transport operator De Lijn selects Conduent Transportation to deploy next-generation fare collection system — Conduent — “The first phase will enable the use of contactless public transport operator payment cards and bank cards based on the cEMV (contactless Europay, MasterCard and Visa), aggregated pay-as-you-go transit model 2… A future phase of the platform will support mobility-as-a-service with the integration of various mobility providers such as car sharing, bike hire and taxis.”


What's New in Payments

JCB begins EMV QR mobile payments rollout

JCB launches QR code payment in the Asian region — JCB — “Bank SinoPac in Taiwan and Sacombank in Vietnam became the first banks to offer the JCB QR Code Payment service. SinoPac will start the service full scale at merchants who used to accept only cash such as fish markets, flower markets and taxis in January 2019… Sacombank has just announced its new mobile banking app ‘Sacombank Pay’, for which their JCB cardmember can choose JCB Card as a source of funds.”


What's New in Payments

Hong Kong to be global battlefront for mobile payments?

A payments battle is brewing in Hong Kong — Bloomberg — “Alipay’s azure blue logos began appearing two years ago in Hong Kong’s airport, greeting travelers from China who rely on the popular payments app back home. In recent months, taxis got them. Now stores and boutiques have them. They’re all signs of a battle brewing in Hong Kong that will test whether a Western-style financial system — based on banks, credit and debit cards — can fend off a pair of apps that have come to dominate how people spend and send money throughout China. If Ant Financial’s Alipay and Tencent Holdings Ltd’s WeChat Pay can expand into the city and win new customers there, why not in Europe and the US, too?”


Transit Ticketing Today

Asian ride hailing giant Grab to let users pay for public transit with its app

Bid to enable public transit payments via GrabPay — The Straits Times — “In future, the Grab app will give commuters a range of options — from a direct point-to-point method, using taxis or private hire cars, or through multiple modes including transfers on shuttle buses, cars and public transport. ‘You pay everything in a seamless way — cashless — through GrabPay.”