Merseyrail has benefitted from Fujitsu's STAR point-of-sale ticketing system for the past nine years, after it was implemented in 2005. Reducing paperwork, the system makes it easy for staff to offer a full range of products without having to refer to paper-based manuals. The Merseyside-based rail operator will retain this system, and in conjunction with Ingenico, will provide 92 iPP320 contactless PINPads and Axis, its proprietary centralised payment process solution. These contactless PINPads are fully PCI DSS compliant and were rolled-out across all Merseyrail's manned kiosk and payment terminals at the end of last year.

Together the two systems allow customers to use Global Payment cards featuring contactless technology to simply and securely touch against the card reader to pay rather than inserting a card into the chip & PIN machine and entering a PIN - for transactions up to £20. These contactless payments can be completed in just a few seconds.

Jose Luis Arias, Managing Director, Ingenico Northern Europe and Iberia, commented: "Through its STAR ticketing system, Fujitsu has taken the lead in providing the transport industry with a cutting edge payment solution which has improved the passenger travel experience and provided bottom line benefits for customers. We're delighted to be working with Merseyrail. We look forward to helping them to further improve their services, by providing full PCI compliance through our Axis platform and contactless capabilities through our PINPads. The transport industry has been working to secure PCI approved payment solutions for a long time and we're confident that through our collaboration with Fujitsu, we can achieve this."

Paul Patterson, Executive Director at Fujitsu, said: "Enabling rail companies to keep up with the latest technology is key to enhancing the customer experience. Contactless payment technology will allow Merseyrail to increase the quality and speed of its service and ensure customers' data, while our collaboration with Ingenico will ensure that their data is protected to the highest standard."

Maarten Spaargaren, Merseyrail's managing director, added: "The total volume of contactless transactions now represents 9.13 per cent of all card payments, with that figure steadily going up. It is great news that more and more people are choosing to pay using contactless, and we're thrilled to be continually introducing new ways of making the customer experience on our network easier and more convenient."