The days of paying cash for rides on public transport may be coming to an end as Ukraine continues its march to an electronic payment future.
Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, passed a bill on Jan. 17 to introduce e-tickets on public transport, part of a wider plan to wean the nation from cash payments and cut the graft that comes with them.
Backed by 265 deputies, the law will allow each city to introduce its own automated accounting and electronic ticketing systems for public transport.
Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan, writing on Facebook, said these new systems would help fight corruption. “This is a fight against corruption, and will bring into transparency the millions of hryvnias that citizens pay for transport,” he wrote.
Omelyan said the new system would also mean more convenience for commuters and an increase in local budget revenues, which could then be spent on developing transport networks.
It follows a move by the Kyiv Metro to phase out plastic tokens in favor of electronic cards.
The organization started restricting token sales to two per customer per transaction in December to gradually transition commuters to a bank and metro card payment system. It plans to completely remove tokens from circulation by the end of the year.
The recent changes are part of a government and National Bank of Ukraine push to reduce the circulation of bills and coins across the country and transition to a cashless economy.
The NBU welcomed the parliament’s adoption of the draft law on e-tickets, its press service touting the development as “a crucial step towards cashless economy.” It stated that public transport fares account for the bulk of mass cash payments.
Ruslan Kravets, deputy director of department and head of strategy and transformation division at the NBU, said transferring public transport to an electronic payment system would be among the immediate steps needed to change Ukraine’s habits and shift the country towards a cashless state.
On the cashless economy panel at the Kyiv Post’s annual Tiger Conference on Nov. 29, experts agreed that Ukraine had extremely high cash circulation, which was fueling the country’s corruption problem.
More than 53 percent of the Kyiv’s metro commuters have switched to card payments already.
Evgeniy Popkin, a regular commuter, is among those who have made the switch to a metro card. But he believes the payment system needs more flexibility. “What if you buy this card, top it up and lose it?” he said.
Murat Bal, another commuter, said the metro card is very beneficial for Kyivans, but tokens should be left in circulation for tourists. “They won’t want to buy a metro card for one or two trips,” he said.
Meanwhile, the metro is also starting to decrease the number turnstiles that accept tokens.
The move is being partly funded by investors such as Mastercard and state-owned Oschadbank, which have been installing paypass technology and card readers across stations.
Kyiv became the fifth city in the world to allow direct bank card payments on metro turnstiles when it launched contactless operations throughout the metro in 2015.
As part of the transition, ticket windows will be transformed into information centres.
Nataliia Makohon, advisor to the Kyiv Metro head, said no personnel cuts will be made as a result of the move, with cashiers being transferred to other positions throughout the metro once the transition is complete.
She said cards would also need to be serviced, and there was currently only one window – at Politekhnichnyi Instytut station – that addresses card related problems.
Furthermore, she said at present the metro was experiencing staff shortages.
The phased-out tokens will be collected and placed in storage until the Kyiv City Council decides what to do with them.
Meanwhile, Privatbank has also announced it will be introducing electronic tickets on public transport via their app Privat24 as a pilot project.
According to the press statement, commuters would from Jan. 17 be able to travel on Lviv’s number 8 tram without a paper ticket, paying for their journey via smartphone.
