1-RFI 26-01 - Transit Payment Cards.pdf

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

Introduction

The Monterey-Salinas Transit District (MST) along with other California transit agencies, requests information on the current functionality and availability of reloadable contactless EMV (cEMV) cards restricted to transit. Through this RFI, MST seeks to understand the latest innovations and solutions that could support the evolution of interoperable payments for public transit in California by offering riders who currently use cash the ability to easily load cash onto a physical and/or digital cEMV payment card that is accepted by the agency’s cEMV card validators.

RFI Schedule

RFI Issue Date: Friday, July 25, 2025

Deadline to Submit Questions: Friday, August 8, 2025 at 12:00 PM

Submittal Deadline: Friday, September 5, 2025 by 2:00 PM

Who should respond?

Banks and credit unions, financial institutions, FinTech’s, prepaid payment card issuers, cash load networks, and payment platforms currently licensed to operate in California are encouraged to respond to this RFI. Partnerships with multiple such firms are encouraged. Responses from consultants will not be considered.

Project Description

Since 2021, many California transit agencies including MST have begun accepting cEMV payments by riders onboard their systems. Driven by interest in reducing barriers to payment, improving the customer experience, and reducing operational costs associated with legacy payment systems, agencies large and small have created a modern and consistent transit payment experience across the entire state of California.

These efforts have the support from state officials at the California State Transportation

Agency and the Department of Transportation (Caltrans) with technical support provided by the California Integrated Travel Project (Cal-ITP).

Inspired by the success of these efforts, MST committed to a contactless fare payment transition plan at its February 2025 board meeting. The plan calls for removing cash fareboxes from all transit vehicles and only accepting digital payments from riders – another first in the state of California, and unique in the United States. For MST, the goal is to significantly increase the speed of vehicle boarding while eliminating the high cost of collecting cash payments onboard. Additionally, the removal of cash onboard transit vehicles creates a safer environment for both transit agency personnel and riders. Finally, removing cash from the system allows riders to benefit from MST fare policies, such as fare capping, which can only be provided through digital payments.

Other California transit agencies plan to continue to accept cash onboard, but seek to minimize use of cash payments by riders and maximize use of their onboard payment validators.

MST and other California transit agencies currently offer several affordable and accessible payment options to riders, in addition to cash.1 California transit agencies accept payment onboard transit vehicles by credit and debit card or smartphone mobile wallet as well as digital ticketing applications. MST has partnered with BankOn to provide information on accessible bank accounts for transit riders, worked with fintech companies to offer incentives and rewards that reduce the cost of transit trips for cardholders, and regularly runs marketing and awareness campaigns on digital payment options targeted at transit riders. However, MST and other California transit agencies anticipate that some transit customers who currently use cash onboard to pay their fare may not be comfortable with the existing alternatives.

Therefore, MST and its partners invite the financial industry to submit information on their ability to provide a merchant-restricted, reloadable cEMV payment card that can meet the needs of current cash paying customers who do not wish to use these existing options. MST and its partners anticipate that these existing digital payment options will meet the needs of the majority of transit riders but seek information on issuance solutions that could complement these offerings.

Desired cEMV Transit Card Solution

MST and other California transit agencies seek information on products and services that allow the agency to transition away from cash payments onboard by implementing a system that would allow riders to easily load cash onto a physical and/or digital cEMV payment card that is accepted by the agency’s cEMV card validators. MST envisions the merchant restricted prepaid card would be purchased and loaded with paper cash at locations throughout the MST service area and then used by riders to pay for transit services onboard. The card would be anonymous and not require Know Your Customer details, however it would be restricted to only transit uses and have a low balance limit.

Required elements of the desired solution include:

1 https://mst.org/wp-content/media/MST-MonthlyReport-May-2025.pdf Page 64.

https://mst.org/wp-content/media/MST-MonthlyReport-May-2025.pdf

• Cash load options that are widely accessible and affordable

• Reloadable accounts through cash, card-present, and card-not-present options

• Physical cEMV cards and digital credentials

• Contactless EMV technology (cEMV) that can be processed by the existing onboard validator hardware

• Physical card distribution to riders

• General customer services provided to account holders, such as balance checking

Anticipated transaction volumes

We anticipate that a successful solution for reloadable, merchant restricted, cEMV payment cards has the potential to scale quickly to transit agencies across California as well as to transit agencies large and small across the United States.

Nationwide, transit agencies process $6.9 billion in fare revenue from customers. While the New York MTA is a significant share of these transactions (+40%), across the country nearly 2,000 individual transit agencies accept payments from riders everyday.

Many of these agencies are in the process of transitioning to accept cEMV credit and debit cards and mobile wallets using L3 certified point of sale terminals/onboard payment validators.

In California, efforts by state leadership and Cal-ITP have accelerated the trend towards cEMV payment acceptance by the more than 400 transit and rail operators statewide.

The state has established contracts for cEMV payment terminals and transit processor services available to all transit agencies and offers free technical support to agencies using them.

MST began accepting cEMV payments in 2021. The agency processes over $4.6 million in revenue each year in fares from its current payment systems. In addition to a cash farebox, payments are accepted using the Kuba ABT 3000 onboard hardware with

Littlepay, CyberSource, and Elavon technology stack. MST annual ridership is over 2 million, and has a base fare of $2. Linked here is the 2023 transit agency report about

MST from the National Transit Database maintained by the Federal Transit

Administration.

MST is joined in this RFI by other California transit agencies with similar onboard technology and payment processing services purchased from the California MSAs.

Santa Cruz METRO processes $8.78 million in revenue each year, of which almost https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/transit_agency_profile_doc/2023/90062.pdf

$600,000 was from cash onboard ticket sales. The agency had annual ridership over

3.35 million and a base fare of $2. Linked here is the 2023 Santa Cruz METRO operating profile on National Transit Database.

RFI Objectives

The primary objective of this RFI is to understand existing solutions, limitations, implementation risks and costs for these services. MST will use the information provided by the market through this RFI to determine a procurement strategy to acquire service providers able to deliver a cEMV-based transit payment card for MST customers. We invite potential vendors to partner as needed to demonstrate their complementary capabilities.

General Questions Please respond to all of the questions below and include additional where needed.

General Company Information

Company Name

Contact Person

Email Address

Phone Number

Vendor Qualifications

Company size (Personnel, annual revenue)

Company location(s)

Overview of services provided

Relevant certifications

(disadvantaged businesses, etc) https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/transit_agency_profile_doc/2023/90006.pdf

Short summary of three past projects with a degree of similarity

Program Details

• Please share details about how customer funds are managed in the accounts.

• Please provide information about banking partnerships and their role in the card program.

• On which global card network is the card program based, if applicable?

o VISA o Mastercard o Discover o Other (please describe)

Cash Reload Network

• Please describe the process for riders to load funds into their account

• Please describe any locations in the MST service area for cash loading and card purchase/distribution

• Describe the process to onboard new locations for these purposes.

• What are the fees associated with cash loads?

• How quickly are the funds available to be used by riders on their card?

Transit Card Payment Processing

• Please describe how transactions are processed.

• Please provide a transaction flow diagram or architecture.

Card Issuance

• Describe the platform to manage card issuance, including delivery to customers.

• Can this platform or a dedicated frontend be made available to the transit agency to view card production and distribution volumes?

• Please name any subcontractors/outsourced vendors involved in offering end-to-end card issuance solutions.

• Please describe any limits on your card related to merchant restrictions, card balance amounts, and Know Your Customer information requirements.

Fraud Prevention

• Kindly outline any features available to prevent or reduce the risk of fraud or misuse.

• Please specify any measures to guarantee legitimate usage.

• Please provide information about privacy and data protection for account holders.

Mobile and Web Interface

• Do you offer a mobile app or website for users to manage cards, view balance and transaction history, and/or load funds into their account?

• Do you enable card provisioning in mobile wallets such as Apple Wallet, Google

Wallet, and Samsung Wallet?

• Is it possible to provision a digital card independently of a physical one?

Customer Services

• Do you provide services to assist users with their queries and issues related to cash loading and card transactions, such as call centers and online support?

Partnerships

• Please indicate potential partnerships for products and services for a successful card program.

• Please specify the role and commercial relationship with any potential partner, ie., can there be revenue share between vendor and agencies and/or is there revenue share between vendor and its suppliers.

Cost Structure

• How would you structure the pricing for this service?

• Please outline the indicative cost structures and amounts for key cost drivers in providing these services, breaking them out by the following program components:

o Cash-loading on cards o Card issuance o Back-end Program Development & Management o Front End Program Development and Customer Service

Card Program Considerations

Kindly outline the potential benefits and long-term advantages of the CEMV card product regarding the items noted below. What differentiates the product from others in the market?

• Cost-effectiveness

• Maintenance

• Usability

• User-group restrictions, such as those for underaged riders

• Discounts and Rewards

• Technological features

• Compatibility with ecosystem partners, like apps and wallets

• Commercial opportunities

• The ability to expand the card program to an open number of transit operators

• Provide information regarding the specific form factors that are supported by the card program, such as physical cards and digital wallets.

Terms of Agreement

Please provide relevant contract and term examples to be included in the public contract. This can be provided as PDF attached to the RFI.

Card Program Agreement

Service Level Agreement

Please indicate which third-party agreements will be required for the card program and provide the terms to be included in the public contract.

Please provide any other contractual obligations required for the card program.

Confidentiality and right of access

MST is not obligated to the confidentiality of the submitted offers and it shall be entitled to publish them as per its discretion and subject to the provisions of the freedom of information act. It shall be clarified that a Respondent shall not be entitled to review the response of another Respondent either fully or partially unless published as aforesaid.

It shall be clarified that this Request for Information is not an order to perform work or a purchase of services. This RFI does not constitute a commitment to issue a Request for

Proposal (RFP) or to award a contract. MST reserves the right to modify or cancel this

RFI at any time.

Contact

For any questions or clarifications regarding this RFI, please contact:

Name Steven Bruno

Title Purchasing Agent

Address 19 Upper Ragsdale Drive, Suite 200

Monterey, CA 93940

Contacts sbruno@mst.org

831-264-5884 mailto:sbruno@mst.org