Commuters will soon be able to use their Mastercard contactless credit or debit cards to pay for bus and train rides. The Land Transport Authority (LTA) yesterday said it has partnered the card company to launch a trial of its Account-Based Ticketing (ABT) system. Instead of using stored-value transit cards such as ez-link and Nets, users can tap their smart credit or debit cards to pay for fares. They will be billed each month along with their other card purchases.
The LTA said Singapore will be the first in Asia, and one of the few cities in the world, to enable this. The pilot will be launched on 20th March and will be applicable for all public bus and train rides. The LTA and Mastercard hope to attract at least 100,000 commuters to take part in the trial.
Asked why Visa - whose payWave contactless payment platform is commonplace - is not included in the trial, the LTA said it was because it had worked with Mastercard in the early stages of developing the system. If the new system takes off, observers expect it to be the first serious competition to LTA-owned ez-link and banks-owned Nets - currently the most popular transit payment mode providers here.
