The Pros and Cons of Open-Loop Payments: an online debate

Griffin has 20 years experience building fintechs globally, specializing in commercializing tech and products. He’s served two stints with Littlepay, helping the SaaS-based PSP deploy its technology to 250 mostly small to midtier transit agencies in the UK, Finland, Portugal, Costa Rica and the USA.

Chen leads EasyCard Corp., the dominant transit and micropayment service provider in a competitive Taiwanese market. She has guided the company in its digital transformation, integrating more than 20 million active stored-value cards and e-wallet accounts. The wallet ranks No. 3 in terms of number of users.

Ms. Nora Tang is the General Manager of Octopus Technical Department and International Projects who has since been involved in electronic payment, different kinds of inter-model transport ticketing and large-scale disbursement for Hong Kong and international clients. Nora manages teams of IT professionals with extensive experience to develop, maintain and enhance the Hong Kong Octopus Clearing House System and other back office systems, large-scale disbursement systems, and brings the Octopus’ unique technologies and operational experience to overseas clients. Based on the successful experience in Hong Kong, Nora and her teams have been working with international partners to design, develop, implement, roll-out, and maintain account-based and card-based ticketing schemes for countries and communities in North America, Europe, Middle East and New Zealand. Nora holds a postgraduate diploma in Business Administration from the University of Warwick, a master degree in Information Technology Management from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, a master degree of Linguistics and a bachelor’s degree of Language Information Science from the City University of Hong Kong.

Ng has nearly 30 years of experience in the payments industry, with particular expertise in payments processing. One of his current focuses is on finding innovative low-cost, high-value financial solutions for transit agencies to accept open-loop payments. Ng has held key positions with Visa Europe and, at present, Transport for London.

Kurt is the Executive Director of Connected Journeys at Transport for New South Wales. As the Head of TfNSW’s Digital Payments business unit, Kurt is responsible for delivering innovative digital and payments products across a variety of channels to over 4 million regular customers that take over 670 million trips annually, equating to over $1.5 billion in annual revenue. Kurt is responsible for overall delivery accountability of the Opal network which is geographically the world's largest electronic ticketing system covering 40,000 square kilometres, 318 train stations, 44 wharves, 29 light rail stops and 39,599 bus stops.

Mick Spiers is the CEO and Founder of The Leadership Project. He has spent 15 years in the Urban Mobility space with a vision to create a world where people can move freely around their cities, without delays, without congestion and ultimately without stress. He has held senior executive roles with Thales and Cubic leading global and regional technology businesses in urban mobility. In this online debate, Mick is an independent consultant who is passionate about seeing organisations collaborate to make a better world.

Since 2005, Gambetta has worked at the Calypso Networks Association, which manages the most-used closed-loop fare payments technology in Europe. Since 2014, he’s served as secretary general of the group. Gambetta also has played key roles in such industry organizations as the Smart Ticketing Alliance and UITP.