Notice Information
Notice Title
Payments Capability
Notice Description
The Tap Converter (TC) service, procured in 2024/25, represents RDG's first step in developing central services to enable travel media agnostic (i.e. ITSO, barcode and cEMV) Pay As You Go (PAYG) on Rail. The Tap Converter is a central rail Account Based Ticketing (ABT) fares engine capable of accepting validation transactions (Taps) generated on rail validation devices (e.g. gates, platform validators and revenue inspection devices) and processing them into the customer journeys, fares and and/or best value cap or products that those Taps represent. The TC is offered as a service that a regional PAYG ticketing solution can integrate with to enable the addition of rail to an existing regional PAYG scheme. In 2025, RDG contracted Tracsis as the supplier of the TC, with initial integrations underway to support PAYG ticketing in both Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) and Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) regions. As part of TfGM Phase 1, the TC integration will enable cEMV acceptance on a limited number of rail routes within the Bee Network PAYG ticketing scheme from 2026. The Digital Ticketing Services (DTS) team within RDG shall run the TC as a central rail service, similar to the other industry services such as the ITSO Central Back Office (CBO), Rail Availability and Reservation Service (RARS) and the Passenger Assist (PA) system. In the future, RDG expects to novate the contracts associated with the TC to an appropriate company within Great British Railways (GBR). RDG seeks to engage with the payments industry to inform the development of additional RDG services (following implementation of the Tap Converter) that will enable the further roll out PAYG acceptance on Rail as part of the Fares, Ticketing and Retail (FTR) programme. This includes the addition of rail PAYG to other regions, and potentially also enabling customers who live and/or travel outside of established PAYG regions to make PAYG rail journeys using their cEMV card. RDG is exploring if procuring centralised payments capability for cEMV travel would facilitate the addition of rail to more regional PAYG ticketing solutions by accommodating these different technical design approaches, such as those looking to deliver multi-operator PAYG using cEMV by integrating with the Coral Broker. Such a centralised component, delivered by a strategic payments partner, would enable the acceptance and processing of contactless cEMV payment transactions including: * Processing payment transactions from cards issued by Mastercard, Visa and preferably other major EMV payment schemes * Provision of Merchant and associated banking requirements. * L3 end to end certification including Front Office Devices s) and Revenue Inspection Devices (RIDs) . * Payment Card Industries Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) v 4.0.1. * Compliance with RDG Front office device and RDG Token standards which also require the ability to request and capture/use PAR. * The ability to accept and return ISO 8583 format payment messaging generated in the back office and/or PSP whether submitted via PSP/Acquirer, gateway, switch to Issuer or other proposed solution to include: o Card Present status check (e.g. Account Verification Request. Pre-Authorisation or Nominal Authorisation Status Check), authorisation (including PAN Translation messaging where required) and settlement messaging in compliance with payment scheme cEMV mass or urban transit messaging specifications and policy requirements. o Card Not Present Merchant Initiated transactions; including MOTO and ECOMM authorisations in compliance with retail messaging specifications and policy requirements, and PAR request and return by either method, API request or terminal capture (where available). o Credential-on-File transactions. o Settlement messaging and associated payment and banking processes. o Management of chargeback requests and disputes. * Fraud, risk and non-compliant messaging management. * Ongoing compliance with EMV payment scheme messaging specifications and Merchant policy requirements. * Merchant reports, including but not limited to merchant statements, settlement reports, chargeback reports, fee summaries, periodic transaction summaries, reconciliation reports, compliance reports fraud and risk reports.
Planning Information
Interested parties, must contact Sam Stevens via email, sign an NDA in order to receive the Memorandum of Information and the formal Expression of Interest form, in order to attend a Bidders' Day on 9th September, 2025. It should be noted that this Market Engagement is aimed at informing the strategic decisions. The Contract Start and End Dates were added purely as RDG were unable to issue the Preliminary Market Engagement Notice without them. Nothing in this PMEN guarantees that RDG will look to run a procurement that relates to this Market Engagement.
Notice Details
Publication & Lifecycle
- Open Contracting ID
- ocds-h6vhtk-058800
- Publication Source
- Find A Tender Service
- Latest Notice
- https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/048793-2025
- Current Stage
- Planning
- All Stages
- Planning
Procurement Classification
- Notice Type
- UK2 - Preliminary Market Engagement Notice
- Procurement Type
- Standard
- Procurement Category
- Services
- Procurement Method
- Not Specified
- Procurement Method Details
- Not specified
- Tender Suitability
- Not specified
- Awardee Scale
- Not specified
Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV)
- CPV Divisions
30 - Office and computing machinery, equipment and supplies except furniture and software packages
34 - Transport equipment and auxiliary products to transportation
48 - Software package and information systems
66 - Financial and insurance services
72 - IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support
-
- CPV Codes
30161000 - Credit cards
30162000 - Smart cards
34980000 - Transport tickets
48100000 - Industry specific software package
48217000 - Transaction-processing software package
66170000 - Financial consultancy, financial transaction processing and clearing-house services
72212217 - Transaction-processing software development services
72212400 - Business transaction and personal business software development services
72232000 - Development of transaction processing and custom software
72300000 - Data services
Notice Value(s)
- Tender Value
- Not specified
- Lots Value
- Not specified
- Awards Value
- Not specified
- Contracts Value
- Not specified
Notice Dates
- Publication Date
- 14 Aug 20256 months ago
- Submission Deadline
- Not specified
- Future Notice Date
- 17 Oct 2025Expired
- Award Date
- Not specified
- Contract Period
- 31 May 2026 - 31 May 2029 3-4 years
- Recurrence
- Not specified
Notice Status
- Tender Status
- Planning
- Lots Status
- Planning
- Awards Status
- Not Specified
- Contracts Status
- Not Specified
Buyer & Supplier
Contracting Authority (Buyer)
- Main Buyer
- RAIL DELIVERY GROUP LIMITED
- Contact Name
- Sam Stevens
- Contact Email
- sam.stevens@raildeliverygroup.com
- Contact Phone
- Not specified
Buyer Location
- Locality
- LONDON
- Postcode
- EC1A 4HD
- Post Town
- Central London
- Country
- England
-
- Major Region (ITL 1)
- TLI London
- Basic Region (ITL 2)
- TLI3 Inner London - West
- Small Region (ITL 3)
- TLI35 Westminster and City of London
- Delivery Location
- Not specified
-
- Local Authority
- City of London
- Electoral Ward
- Aldersgate
- Westminster Constituency
- Cities of London and Westminster
Further Information
Notice Documents
-
https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/048793-2025
14th August 2025 - Preliminary market engagement notice on Find a Tender
Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS)
View full OCDS Record for this contracting process
The Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) is a framework designed to increase transparency and access to public procurement data in the public sector. It is widely used by governments and organisations worldwide to report on procurement processes and contracts.
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