The globally leading card payments technology provider, Visa announces the launch of National Common Mobility Card (NCMC), as conceived by the government of India. NCMC is an interoperable transport card that can be used for payments of all transmit segments such as metro, bus, suburban railway, toll, parking, Smart city, and retail.

“Globally across cities, we have seen transit as a gateway category that drives adoption of digital payments in the local economy. In India, consumers have continued to prefer cash to digital payments for low value-high frequency transactions such as transit. With the transit sector expected to expand with numerous upcoming metro and smart city projects, NCMC contactless cards will trigger rapid adoption of digital payments across transit use cases. Besides being cost effective vis-à-vis cash, it will also help improve the efficiency and scale of public transit systems in the country,” says TR Ramachandran, Group Country Manager, India and South Asia, Visa.

He further states “With our contactless card solutions, we are committed to the Government’s vision of being able to use a single card for transit, which would be a key enabler for our nation to move towards a ‘less-cash’ society.”

In line with the guidelines laid down by the ministry, Visa NCMC cards will permit the contactless feature of tapping to pay, that provides a card balance for offline usage at transit venues. It allows card holders to store their transit passes on the card and also provides multiple ways to top-up the offline balance on the card.