The largest taxi company in Taiwan, Taiwan-taxi 台灣大車隊 turns to Visa Paywave for the payment of taxi fares that usually range from the minimum fee of NT$70 (US$ 2 - EUR 1.6) to NT$400 (US$ 12.5 - EUR 9.5). The case for contactless payment in taxi seems indeed quite obvious: fares represent small amounts, taxi drivers often carry little change, people are often in a hurry, coins often drop and get lost, transactions have to be done off-line, etc. So much so that, 3 years ago, the same company did a trial with TSCC and their EasyCard. It was however not so successful because the amount stored on the Easycard is intended for much lower fares (TSCC fare is around NT$20), thus creating a situation where people would not have enough money on their Easycard to pay for the taxi fare and no possibility to top-up.

Visa Paywave solves this problem as the transaction is directly debited from the client’s account after the taxi driver does his daily settlement.

Although Visa Paywave is getting most publicity from this implementation with Taiwan Taxi, other brands can also be acquiered by the China Trust (CTCB) POS contactless reader: J/speedy (JCB), Easycard (TSCC) and Q-Pay (7-ELEVEN + CTCB)

One taxi driver said to me: “1 out of 5 customers pay with their Visa Paywave card! Very convenient”.

One more reason to push for a commercial rollout of NFC in Taiwan

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