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Visa (V) Partners With MST to Ease California's Transit Journey

Visa Inc. V has teamed up with Monterey-Salinas Transit (“MST”) in a bid to introduce a contactless payment option for travel across California. Apart from Visa and MST, Caltrans, Cybersource, Littlepay, and SC Soft.are also a part of the tie-up.

The latest move underscores Visa’s efforts to extend contactless payment options and equitable fare policies. This will address the diverse needs of California residents and state transit operators, and ease the transit experience.

MST riders can now avail an easier way to travel with tap to pay through contactless credit, debit, prepaid card or payment-enabled device. This will eliminate the need for cash while travelling in MST buses. Buying or loading a separate transit card will not be required either. Contactless payments are most desired amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

With regard to equitable fare payment system, MST riders availing the touchless payment option will be provided with "fare capping" benefit. The benefit assures riders of not paying more than $10 per day. They will have to use the same card or mobile wallet for payments through the entire day.

Moreover, the Visa solution named Cybersource has been crucial in making the partnership successful. It has ramped up the roll out of a diversified portfolio of payment and fraud management tools. These are aimed at accelerating deployment of contactless solutions in the mass transit industry.

Simultaneously, the platform also provides transit compliant processing solutions not specific to any brand and assures protection against frauds.

This partnership of Visa seems to be a time opportune one as the U.S. transportation system is gradually reopening. Per a Visa research, contactless payments developed in the transit space can pave the way for the economy to recover. It can result in a 15% uptick of transactions from merchants across surrounding neighborhoods.

Coming back, Visa is targeting to expand contactless payments across the United States. Visa’s face-to-face transactions conducted with just a tap have more than doubled since the onset of the pandemic. This shows customers’ rising preference for contactless payments. Through Visa's Transit Program, the company has been making every effort to simplify the travel experience of passengers via advanced payment technologies.

Other companies in the same space have also undertaken steps to simplify the transit experience. Mastercard Incorporated MA partnered with Department of Transport and Main Road (TMR) Queensland in a bid to provide advanced payment technologies for transport users across the Gold Coast Light Rail network.

Also, Global Payments Inc. GPN uses its core processing platform to introduce enhanced payment technologies for customers while availing the public transport.

EVO Payments, Inc. EVOP joined forces with On Track Innovations for offering end-to-end payment solutions that is intended to benefit the transit system.

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