Apple Pay to add support for transit cards?

By Mike Clark • • Updated • nfcw.com
Strings found in iOS 11.3 beta 4 mention Chinese transit cards and operator SPTCC
BETA CODE: Strings found in iOS 11.3 beta 4 mention Chinese transit cards and operator SPTCC

Apple Pay is set to add support for closed loop transit cards, issued by public transportation operators, information found in the code of the latest version of iOS suggests.

Users are invited to add a transit card to their Apple Wallet
APPLE PAY: Users are invited to add a transit card to their Apple Wallet

A screen which invites users to “start using the Transit Beta by adding a transit card to Wallet” as well as strings which mention Shanghai Transit Card and Beijing Transit Card have been spotted in the code, reports 9to5Mac.

Until now Apple Pay users have been able to make payments using regular credit and debit cards on transport systems that support open loop payments. This is believed to be the first time, however, that Apple has made it possible to add public transportation operators’ own closed loop cards to Apple Pay.

Next: Visit the NFCW Expo to find new suppliers and solutions

3 comments on this article

  1. Suica has already been supported since October 2016. Is Suica a closed-loop transit card system?

Comments are closed.