Visa renews partnership with Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transport

The partnership is aimed at developing modern public transit systems featuring open-loop EMV tap-to-ride technology, which allows riders to tap their existing payment cards, mobile wallets or wearables to pay for their transit fares, e-tickets, electric vehicle charging, toll fees and car-park fees.

Tap-to-ride is becoming increasingly popular, with Visa’s network having processed over one billion tap-to-ride transactions on global transit systems in ten months.

Visa’s recent Future of Urban Mobility Survey found that 91 per cent of riders expect public transit systems to offer contactless payments, and nearly a third cited contactless payments as a top feature that would entice them to use public transit.

Dung Dang, Visa country manager of Vietnam and Laos, said, “The use of contactless payments will improve the travel experience for all commuters, making journeys more smart, seamless and secure. Going cashless and paperless will also help to reduce the environmental footprint in the city. We are excited to continue our collaboration with Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transportation to implement more acceptance points across the city, as this is an important part of the nation’s smart city agenda.”

In Vietnam, the pandemic has altered payments, including the leap from physical cards to contactless payments and from cash to cashless. According to the 2022 Visa Consumer Payment Attitudes Study, Vietnam has seen an increase in contactless payment usage since 2021.

Now, 83 per cent of consumers are aware of contactless transit cards, with usage ranging from mobile apps, prepaid cards, and debit cards. Four in five consumers said they used contactless cards for transit at least once a week or more often, with Gen X, Boomers, and the Affluent segment using contactless cards most often.

The city's transport department's first MoU with Visa saw contactless tap-to-ride payments rolled out in 50 buses in Ho Chi Minh City. Under ther enewed MoU, the department is aiming for a 20-fold increase to 1,000 buses. Visa and the transport department will also continue to engage on initiatives and public policies that will drive smarter mobility across the city.

Tran Quang Lam, director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transport said “Smart mobility is a key strategic objective in the transformation of Ho Chi Minh City. We are thrilled to be partnering with Visa to provide all citizens with more utilities through seamless and modern technology innovations.”

He added that Ho Chi Minh City was adopting measures to develop a smart city, including the establishment of an interconnected online ticketing system for public transport. The plan states that by 2025, all bus public services will accept e-tickets. Hence, the use of cashless payment for public transit will be the normal when Metro Line 1 begins service in 2024.

“The city transport department recently worked with Visa to roll out EMV contactless payment technology on bus routes. We are pleased to see Visa promoting and boosting digital transactions in transportation. The transport department and Visa will further collaborate and develop optimised strategies to implement cutting-edge technology to cut down on commuting times for service payments,” he said.

In the initial years of collaboration, the two sides engaged in a fruitful sharing of experiences. Last year, delegates from the city transport department visited Singapore to attend a knowledge-sharing tour organised by Visa. The trip demonstrated the organisations’ efforts in supporting the future of smart mobility and opened discussions on transit policymaking and open-loop systems.

“Visa’s experience in managing urban mobility projects in over 640 cities globally, and 50 cities in Asia Pacific, provides the city transport department access to global best practices in smart mobility. To expand universal support, Visa will open up Cybersource, our world-leading global payment management platform for enhancing digital payment infrastructure. This will afford all payments processed the security and fraud-screening capabilities of Visa, making smart transport safer and more accessible for all,” said Dang.

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