Clear2Pay has been selected by the South African National Department of Transport to develop functional test solutions for EMV contactless cards and payment terminals.

According to Clear2Pay, the rapidly expanding number of public transport users in South Africa has prompted the government to introduce an Automatic Fare Collection system in an effort to modernize the country’s public transport infrastructure. Various initiatives are being deployed in South Africa, including a minibus taxi project in the North West Province and imminent rollouts of new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and other public transport services in the cities of Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg.

Before rolling out the EMV contactless cards and payment terminals, banks and third-party vendors are required to submit their cards and devices to a mandatory certification process in order to validate their equipment against a set of specifications designed to ensure interoperability across all public transport services. To facilitate this, Clear2Pay is partnering with Iplex to establish a local certification laboratory featuring Integri branded test tools for pre-certification purposes.

According to Clear2Pay, the system’s new contactless EMV cards could be used for low value retail payments as well as transit fare payment.