MasterCard Worldwide and Citigroup have joined forces with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in New York to run a six month contactless payment trial.
The trial will take place in select subway stations with pre-selected Citi credit card and Citibank customers. It aims to evaluate the benefits of contactless payment technology in the busy NYC subway environment.
Using contactless payment technology powered by MasterCard PayPass, participants in the subway trial will be able to pay for their fare at the point of entry by tapping their contactless Citi credit card, Citibank MasterCard debit card or payment tag on a specially equipped reader built into the subway turnstile.
These specially equipped turnstiles feature a graphic (a white asterisk mark on a circular green background) that is unique to the trial, so that participants know which turnstiles accept their cards or payment tags.
The cards and payment tags, which offer both pay-as-you-go and pre-pay options, can also be used at any MasterCard PayPass merchant location in the US and globally.
The MTA is pleased to have the opportunity to work with MasterCard and Citigroup to learn more about their approach to contactless payment technology for transit, said Peter Kalikow, the MTA’s chairman.
Our goal in this trial is to evaluate the potential of contactless payments to simplify fare payment for customers who travel throughout the MTA network, while also evaluating its operating efficiencies.