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Comment by dheera | Hacker News Reader

I believe Singapore's public transit does support tapping a credit card directly at the gates now, but there's an annoying step of having to register your card in advance on an app before it actually works.

My guess is this might be because on-the-fly credit card authorizations still take too long. Waiting 3 seconds for an EMV contactless verification would seriously hold up the line at rush hour in a country where most people live by public transit.

If I were to guess, the registration is probably what enables them to pre-authorize a credit line and allow you to tap in in a fraction of a second.

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That's odd. Most open-loop transit payment systems I know give new/unknown cards the benefit of the doubt, and put the card on a block list if it turns out to not be good for the fare that's eventually distributed to all readers.

Are you sure that's true? Their website says otherwise:

> Do I need to sign up for a SimplyGo account to use my contactless bank card for transit? You do not need to sign up for a SimplyGo account to use your contactless bank card for transit.

OK, it's confusing, I had seen some other information that suggested app registration was necessary. It seems that it's only necessary if you want to track your journeys which makes sense.

> there's an annoying step of having to register your card in advance on an app before it actually works.

Did this change recently? I travelled a little over a year ago and my Wise card worked right after I landed at the Singapore airport.

Interesting, and this hypothesis shows why twmp cards might be preferred.

I have no issue with temp cards, if I can buy them right at the pickup location. I once flew into a place late at night, and only stores had cards to buy, and all were closed.

Duh.

Yeah that's a stupid system and I've seen it in many places. Being asked to go to <some random convenience store> to get the official public transit card, even the dude at the station couldn't sell me one.

The vending machines at every station should be capable of directly vending public transit cards. I think most of the better systems around the world do work that way.

Credit cards do not require online authorization.

That is a flaw of Singapore's system. Other places let people use contactless credit cards without any delay.

London has been using contactless for a while.

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