AFCS

As reported earlier, on July 25, 2025, MRT-3 in Manila started to accept GCash QR codes directly at the gate, without the need to buy a prepaid ticket.

I have not found reports of first-hand experience with this new feature. All I can talk about here is what I can deduce from the user experience with the GCash application and from comparing the QR code data to the QCAT specification. I cannot say anything about processing until I have tried it myself.

In summary, there does not seem to be much support for interoperability. I would say that the e-wallets may have missed a chance to compete with the payment cards schemes in the AFCS market.

As announced, MRT-3 in Manila, Philippines, started accepting payment cards and GCash QR codes at some of their automated gates (see (1) and (2)).

According to the DOTR facebook posts, two stations (Ayala and Cubao) have two upgraded gates for entry and exit, while one gate was upgraded at all other MRT-3 stations.

Based on the pictures and video clips and the information I get from Facebook posts and press releases, I got answers for some of my earlier questions.

The secretary of the DOTR said on radio that on July 25, 2025, MRT-3 will start piloting the use of QR code wallets, credit cards and debit cards at one automated gate in each of the MRT-3 stations.

Previously, on May 30, 2025, the government already announced that Gcash, as well as Debit and Credit cards, will be accepted for payment of train fares.

It seems that kentkart provided and installed the solution. They probably didn’t start in June, but even if they already started last year, the speed of getting to a working pilot is impressive.

As the use of e-wallets is truly fascinating for me, I would love to know more about the user experience. Unfortunately, I don’t live in Manila anymore and can’t check it out myself. If anybody has the time to try out a few transaction with both payment cards and GCash, maybe they can comment here and let us all know how it went.

As the saying goes, those who believe that something cannot be done should get out of the way of those doing it.

Nevertheless, fancying myself to be an old "engineer", I cannot help myself but think of reasons why such an implementation would be difficult.

I therefore have a few questions:

In my previous post I outlined why QR-based payments are problematic for ticketing applications. However, there are ways to use QR codes in automated fare collection systems, which I will describe in this post.

The success of QR-based, realtime, account-to-account payment systems in Asia is remarkable. It introduced a long-overdue element of healthy competition into the payment industry that was dominated by banks and their card payments (domestic as well as Visa/MC).

However, contactless EMV gives traditional payment systems two huge advantages that cannot easily be overcome by the new QR systems: fast, tap-and-go style transactions and account-based ticketing in automated fare collection systems.

In this article, I am trying to explain why EMV is so suitable for mass transport ticketing. In the next article, I will then cover three topics: