Transit and mobility-focused payment service provider Littlepay has announced the launch of open loop payments on public transport in Finland’s capital Helsinki and its second largest urban area, the city of Tampere.
Tap-to-pay is now live on selected ferries and trams in Helsinki and on buses operated by Nysse in Tampere.
Last year, Littlepay won a contract with Helsinki Regional Transport (HSL) and TVV lippu- ja maksujärjestelmä Oy (LMJ) to enable contactless EMV payments on public transport in Helsinki and in other Finnish cities.
This is the first phase of the project, which will continue with multimodal roll-outs across the cities’ transit systems.
Amin Shayan, CEO of Littlepay, said: “It is great to see two cities go live in Finland.
“We thank HSL and LMJ for entrusting us to deliver open loop payments and we look forward to expanding the system across their networks, encompassing more transport modes into a unified solution.”
HSL said its key objective in modernising its ticketing and payment system is to improve the experience of commuting and leisure travel.
According to the operator, contactless transit payments are expected to be popular with city dwellers and tourists who already use tap-to-pay solutions in retail and hospitality.
Mari Flink, customer experience and sales director at HSL, said: “We believe our riders will appreciate the convenience of the new systems we are putting in place.
“On public transport, it’s so simple to tap a contactless card or device on a reader, rather than queuing to buy a travel card or ticket, or downloading a transit app.”
Littlepay said there is already strong contactless payment adoption in the Nordics, which has accelerated in the last year.
Data from paytech firm Nets shows that the ratio of contactless card payments rose significantly in the region during the pandemic – from around 56% at the start of 2020 to 74% in November. In Finland, there was growth from 64% to 70% over that period.
The fare collection systems being used in Helsinki and Tampere utilise Littlepay for transit payment processing and Nets for card scheme connectivity.
However, the solutions vary in their choice of integrated hardware. In Helsinki, PPT Excellence validators handle card taps, while in Tampere, hardware is provided by Pusatec and Logos.
The ability to plug-and-play different connected validators and acquiring services is regarded as a key advantage of using Littlepay.
The payment gateway has secured numerous partnerships with ticketing technology providers and financial institutions, which allow it to offer a range of hybrid solutions.
All integrations are PCI Level 1 certified and compliant with card scheme rules for transit.
Littlepay said it has achieved a number of ‘firsts’ to bring the projects to fruition, including localisation of its merchant portal, with Finnish and Swedish translations and Euro currency support.
For the Tampere deployment, Littlepay has enhanced its fare capping rules to introduce zonal, time-based capping.
This allows the transit agency to configure fare caps depending on the time period a passenger is travelling within and the zonal areas they enter during their journey.
The new capping rules are designed to offer flexibility and value for passengers, who can travel across as many zones as needed within the travel window and be charged the best fare for the journey taken.
In Helsinki, Littlepay’s new fare inspection app, Littlepay Inspect, is compatible with Android, NFC-enabled device, removing the need for PCI compliant hardware to check a contactless payment method’s validity for travel.
It also supports inspection on- and off-vehicles, automatically checking cards against a list of known taps.
Another HSL objective within the project is to begin a migration towards account-based ticketing in Finland’s cities, which would mean travel rights and travel product rules are controlled in a back-end system.
To facilitate this, a later phase of the project will involve the use of Littlepay’s recently developed back-office API to integrate a back-office with the payment platform.
