CBA will provide transit ticketing acquiring services for the NSW Government for at least another five years and will also support the State to deliver “new technologies for improved journey planning, payment and information access”. In a statement on Friday, Australia’s biggest bank said it had retained transit ticketing as part of the NSW banking tender. The five year agreement includes options to extend for a further six years. CBA dominates this market, providing transit acquiring services to other large states including Queensland, Victoria and South Australia for debit and credit transactions on buses, ferries and trains. “Open loop” tap on, tap off transit transactions enable commuters to use their debit and credit cards on buses, ferries and trains. “Closed loop” systems include Opal cards in NSW and Myki in Victoria.  “Open loop” transit is one of the few large and growing retail markets still closed to competition from Australian Payments Plus’ eftpos payments, providing a leg up to global card schemes Visa and Mastercard in the Australian market.  Transit is also one of the fastest growing segments for mobile payments, with many commuters choosing to tap cards stored in wallets like ApplePay, rather than pull out a physical card. In last week’s announcement, CBA was one of five banks to deliver a range of services in NSW. Under its contract CBA will deliver liquidity management, transaction banking, merchant acquiring, FX, cross-border payments and transit payments services, to increase efficiency and make transacting with the government seamless for the people of New South Wales. Sinead Taylor, incoming CBA Group Executive, Institutional Banking and Markets, said CBA would bring the bank’s full breadth of transaction banking capabilities to drive better outcomes for New South Wales. Transit ticketing is a big and growing business in Australia. NSW is currently running a year late with a complex $568 million upgrade of the Opal ticketing system currently run by US tech company, Cubic. 

Acquiring is provided by CBA, and gateway services are provided by its cards partner Mastercard. It is believed to be one of the biggest ticketing contracts in the world. According to reports in the Sydney Morning Herald, the Government has paid Cubic $1.345 billion to operate the Opal system since 2010 and recently extended its contract for two years until September 2026. In 2023, the Victorian government signed a $1.7 billion contract for US company Conduent to run myki for 15 years. Victoria’s Department of Transport and Planning (DTP) appointed CBA as a merchant acquirer for its next generation public transport ticketing system roll-out. At the time,  Andrew Hinchliff, Group Executive Institutional Banking & Markets at CBA said: “We have a longstanding commitment to innovation in public transport infrastructure, with CBA’s digital transit ticketing capability now underpinning every open loop contactless payment option used by public transport in Australia and New Zealand.” Last year, it was also announced that Westpac is partnering with the ACT Government on its new smart transport system, MyWay+, to enable debit or credit card transactions.In September 2023, the WA government announced an overhaul of the SmartRider system which, would enable commuters to use