More on Oyster at Payment News

More On TfL's Oyster Card Plans

Filed in: Stored Value, Transit Payments

Rhys Blakely reports for the London Times on yesterday's announcement from Transport for London clarifying that they had not pulled the plug on plans to expand acceptance of its Oyster prepaid cards but that the technical and financial partners they were working with simply hadn't provided an acceptable approach.

In a statement that seems to express some exasperation with their experience working with potential partners, a TfL spokesman commented:

"TfL is a public transport provider, and while we are very keen to extend the Oyster system, we need to be certain we can run it at a profit. We think we need to lock the boffins in a shed and get them to come up with a solution that works. The financial and technical ideas that we have seen so far have been too complex and we have not progressed as far as we would have liked."

[Editor's note: Who ever thought designing electronic payment systems was easy or simple?!]