Vaasa, ​​a city on the west coast of Finland, has become the fifth urban area in the country to deploy contactless open loop payments using Littlepay’s payment platform. Helsinki Regional Transport, in partnership with TVV lippu- ja maksujärjestelmä Oy (LMJ), selected Littlepay following a competitive tender to bring tap-to-pay to public transport in Finland’s capital Helsinki and roll-out the system in several other cities.

In Vaasa, EMV payment readers have been installed across a fleet of 27 buses in the city to make it easier and faster for residents and tourists to pay for journeys and get on board. Passengers won’t need to handle cash to buy a ticket, they can simply tap a reader with their contactless Visa, Visa Electron, Mastercard, or co-branded Eurocard card, or use a contactless enabled device. Later, the system will accept payments made using Apple Pay and Google Pay.

Littlepay’s back office collects tap data and calculates the correct fare to be charged. The city of Vaasa has configured a 60-minute time-based fare cap using Littlepay’s merchant portal. This enables passengers using the system to enjoy unrestricted bus switches within a 60-minute window from the first tap-on. It has also set daily fare caps, so that passengers are never charged more than the €5.20 price of a daily ticket, no matter how many trips they take.

“Tap-to-pay makes it much easier to pay for bus travel. I’m glad we’re among the first cities to use this technology in Finland”

Anastassia Backlund, a public transport specialist for the City of Vaasa

“It gives us great pleasure to see our rollout in Finland continue. Consumers in this region are strong adopters of contactless payments in retail, so they are quick to adapt to this new payment method.”

Paul Griffin, Global Head of Commercial at Littlepay

For this system, which launched on February 4th, Littlepay handles contactless EMV transit payment processing. Its modular platform plugs-and-plays with a range of payment readers and acquiring banks to provide an end-to-end contactless EMV ticketing solution. In this instance, pre-integrated partners include Nets for acquiring services and Pusatec for ticketing technology.