Contactless not working on buses?

My Monzo card was rejected twice on a first bus in Cornwall yesterday. On both occasions, I used Apple Pay. I used my Starling card in my Apple wallet and it worked fine. Weird.

:thinking:

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Same experience. Monzo cards aren’t working with Apple Pay - all other providers are fine.
Monzo just saying they are aware - not much else! :man_shrugging:t3:

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Hi all, is anyone else struggling to pay with either a monzo card or google pay on your local bus? I’ve been having problems for about 4 weeks now. My card seems to freeze the bus payment system. Ive tried a new card but it’s still kaput!

May be related - https://community.monzo.com/t/monzo-card-not-working-on-first-bus/

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I use my Monzo card when using local Go Northeast busses and haven’t had any issues at all with acceptance.

A suggestion in the other thread linked above - re: doing a chip & pin transaction - might be worth doing to rule it in or out.

Otherwise I’d be tempted to contact support again and ask for another replacement card, mentioning the issues you’ve had.

Second thread today about the issue and the third in total.

The original as @caspararemi posted above. It has more attempts to analyse the problem.

@CraigR Monzo card works fine, its Apple Pay and for some Google Pay issues on buses with Monzo.

Where is the CoralCrew when you need to merge threads? :sweat_smile: Oh,@simonb is back.

Edit: That was quick! :partying_face:

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I tried again today and same issue not accepting Apple Pay. Using the physical Monzo card works fine.
Below is an email I received from Morebus- seems to point to it being a Monzo issue rather than merchant.
Have reported in chat

Hi Steven,

Thank you for getting back to us.

I have spoken to our technical issue team about this, and we aren’t aware of any universal issues on our side concerning Monzo payment cards. We are aware Monzo customers have been experiencing issues using the bank in general over the past few days, however I do understand this has been going on for some time.

Customers have been having issues with another third party bank, which was raised with our parent company, the Go Ahead Group. Monzo issues were also raised, however it was categorically stressed the issue was not on our system.

I do completely understand your frustration with this case, however there is not much else we are able to suggest sadly. You may want to contact your bank further with this information to see if they are able to advise any further information.

Let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

**Kind regards,

Don’t quote me on this but I believe this is something to do with Monzo cards being online cards and buses (because they don’t have a permanent internet connection) have to accept offline cards.

However Monzo does support offline purchases (because it works on aeroplanes for example). So it looks like the bus just sees it as an online card and just says “no thanks, bye” instead of attempting an offline payment.

Would be good if someone from Monzo could comment?

@Rika @HughWells

Monzo cards work. It is Monzo in Apple Pay that isn’t working.

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They are online preferring but do support offline operation. All UK debit cards should be set up this way either already or by the end of the year.


We’re investigating the mobile wallet issue but don’t have good visibility into why this is failing yet as nothing ever reaches us. It currently seems to be a fault somewhere between Mastercard’s Digital Enablement Service (the technology powering Mastercard cards on Apple Pay, Google Pay, and others) and the terminals in use on the buses.

For now, the physical cards should still work (if it does not, please try a chip and PIN transaction somewhere else first). :slightly_smiling_face:

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There should be intelligence to always allow contactless only terminals.This could be a dangerous situation for someone.

I have had the same issue with Google Pay, but the card works fine :confused:

I’ve just had my Monzo card within the Google Pay wallet be declined, when trying to buy a £6 ticket on Ipswich buses, the Halifax credit card worked fine as usual, within the Google Pay wallet.

Many bus companies are using Ticketer on their buses, so would be worth Monzo getting in touch with them to collaborate on resolving the issue.

When I first started using the credit card on this phone, I had to remove the card and add it again to get it to reliably work. Halifax were getting a notification of a payment attempt through however it was the device and not Halifax that was declining the transactions.

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Quick update, using monzo contactless through Google pay app works on Stagecoach but not on Arriva.

Would you know the ticket machine manufacturer for each?

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Had this issue with 2 Monzo Apple Pay attempts (different people) in Brighton today. A friend with NatWest Apple Pay has to come in and save us, how embarrassing!

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No idea lol sorry. It’s weird as the monzo card (physical card) contactless works fine with both

As quoted earlier, this would be in breach of the law.

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I never said it wouldn’t.

It is hardly fair though to force contact transactions though when the terminal is contactless only. The law is outdated was my point. It is a should.

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Still not working on any first bus up here in Scotland. This is using a monzo card via Google Wallet. Physical card works fine though. Issue persists for at least 2 weeks now. Very frustrating