Visa Inc. announced commuters in New York and Los Angeles can now their Visa cards for bus, subway and train fares.

The pilot program in New York uses Visa payWave technology, which is based on a small electronic chip embedded in a mobile phone or payment card that communicates securely with contactless readers at the fare gate and on the bus. Transit riders pay by simply holding their Visa payWave-enabled mobile phone or card near the designated reader at the fare gate.

Meanwhile, the program in Los Angeles, which began September 15, is exclusive to Visa and is a system wide commercial implementation available to all riders of the L.A. Metro system. The TAP ReadyCARD combines Visa prepaid functionality with the L.A. Metro's Transit Access Pass (TAP) proprietary transit application on a single card.

The programs in both cities are part of Visa's long-term strategy of extending the speed, security and convenience of Visa acceptance to new locations. As part of this strategy, the company has successfully brought payment services to commuters in the world's most populous areas, including Kuala Lumpur, Seoul, Singapore, London and Paris.