London transport plans e-money scheme

Public transport passengers in London could soon pay for their newspapers, coffee and car parking fares using Transport for London's (TfL) Oyster travel cards.

TfL has shortlisted seven consortia to bid for the Oyster e-money scheme, which will allow commuters to pay for low value goods and services at newsagents, fast food outlets, supermarkets and parking machines.

It will start negotiations with bidders next month and hopes to begin trials of the e-payment technology by the end of the year.

'Oyster has the largest customer base of all smart cards in the UK, with 2.2 million users and a significant level of public trust,' said Jay Walder, managing director of finance and planning at TfL.

'Extending Oyster to include low value payments is a natural progression which will make the smart card even more convenient.'

Companies and consortia bidding to run the project are: alphyra; Barclays; BBVA, Accenture, MTR and Octopus; EDS and JP Morgan; Nucleus, Dexit, Ericsson, Hutchison 3G and Euroconex; PayPal; and Royal Bank of Scotland.

TfL first announced its plans for Oyster e-money in March and hopes to use the scheme to generate additional revenues for the London transport system.

It will also look at successful smartcard electronic payments projects in Hong Kong and Japan before launching the system.

'The use of contactless smart cards for low value payments is growing in popularity around the globe,' said Walder. 'Such schemes are now well established in Hong Kong and Japan and significant trails are taking place in the United States.'