New Delhi, July 5 (IANS) BPC's smart city payment division, O-CITY, has joined the 'Visa Ready for Transit' programme for mass transit systems.

Visa Ready for Transit programme is designed for companies whose technology products and capabilities are helping transit agencies and riders realise the benefits of tapping to ride with a contactless card or digital wallet.

Post this development, O-CITY is a certified partner of Visa Ready and available in cities globally to accelerate their digital transformation. With this move, O-CITY moves a step closer to provide digital support services to the Indian transportation sector, the company said in a statement.

With Visa Ready, O-CITY will overcome traditional public transport challenges, it added.

Transit authorities traditionally use their own proprietary systems to accept payments for bus, metro, train or tramway journeys. These systems use closed-loop cards, which are built solely for a specific transport mode and cannot be used to pay for anything else.

Visa Ready is bringing together all players in the ecosystem to drive the adoption of open-loop systems. For transport agencies, the adoption of an open-loop system frees them from the hassle of building and maintaining a complex payment system, allowing them to focus on offering the best traveller experience as travellers can pay with the mobile phone or card they already have.

Tokhir Abdukadyrov, SVP of smart city and transport solutions, BPC, said: "The world is rapidly embracing contactless payments across all public transport; a situation that will only be accelerated by the Covid-19 global pandemic. With contactless payments, everyone wins. Acceptance into the Visa Ready programme represents a key milestone in O-CITY's plans to drive digital transformation in collaboration with transport operators worldwide."

O-CITY is ready to collaborate with transport operators worldwide on point of contact (POC) and innovative projects to further drive and accelerate the adoption of digital and contactless payments, said the statement.

O-CITY is used in over 100 cities across the globe. The expertise and experience gained by O-CITY of operations, technology and go-to market strategies can be transferred to other transportoperators going through a similar journey of opening their system up to contactless payments, it said.

--IANS rrb/sn/vd