The Netherlands unveils nationwide contactless transport payment system

The Netherlands had a nationwide bus/train/tram OV-chipcard framework for at least a decade. So, this is the upgrade which removes card-specific behaviours but the socialised outcome is much the same: I hold a device or personal cashcard to a reader, I am registered. "contactless" is such a neologism: I dont "insert" it but by god, you still basically "tap" it which colloquially is contact. no?

One quirk of the Dutch system which hit foreigners but not nationals is that the dutch banking systems used a card clearing service which was very much integrated into their own (very old, very venerable, very good) banking systems and only one or two card suppliers internationally in the visa/mastercard framework were in the computing interchanges. Consequently most tourists could only add value to their OV Chipcard at the manned railway station counter, because it's readers had to handle all visa/mastercards presented: the machines at stations and busstops simply didn't work, and you got a very dutch "shrug" when you watched one of your friends work, and your own payment failed.

This was also why Albert Heijn sometimes refused visa. Self catering accom in central Amsterdam? priceless. For everything else, No, there isn't always mastercard: it depends. Put that milk bottle back!

When I got a 6 month residency in Amsterdam, and was allowed to open a dutch bank account, life got much simpler. -Except the dutch also went hard on 2FA and you had to use a USB attached PIN generation device which read your card, to do online shopping. But it did mean you could recharge things like phone accounts. I suspect there's a very dutch "shrug" about this too because it's undoubtedly safer than most economies "use stored card if you can remember the CVV" thing but it was .. slightly annoying. Remembering which door of the tram to get on and off annoying. Remembering not to walk in the cycle lane annoying. Having to put up with half your city being non-dutch speaking annoying. (sorry)

Back in my hometown of Brisbane I have to live with a transport grid which spans anywhere I want to go, but chose the wrong kind of reader and payment engine and it's been a multi-year shitshow to get them to begin even TESTING doing this, with ordinary cards, and stored value on the phone. They underspecified the model on release. Australia was within 2 purchase decisions between Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane of a single tollway RFID provider, and a single compatible card for transport.. And they went "nope" and so we had 3+ competing systems which intersected sometimes.

Was it really impossible to specify interoperability?