I’m sure this has been suggested however southern rail now do their own contactless card, this seems silly to me, I wonder if one day we could use our monzo card for tapping in and out all over the national rail network. Wallet thinning is the way forward.
By “Contactless Card” do you mean their smartcard branded “the key”
If so these are slowly rolling out across the country and the end idea is that they will work cross operator.
But they still have MANY problems to work out.
Contactless payment has been looked at too but without them being able to store data for season tickets etc I think the majority will use the smartcard option.
So it’s a generic nfc chip, not the payment nfc chip.
Though I think for southern it’s about reducing cost (paper) rather than investment in the future technology.
The cards are based on ITSO - the industry standard for transport smartcards in the UK.
The smartcard roll out is government backed and they have put quite some money in to it. Southern (GTR) have had their cards for 3 years now, but still have quite a few bugs. But they are the first ones to have a PAYG scheme on it, which is still being trialled after 3 years…
Like getting the trains to run on time. Or run at all. 
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I can’t comment…
I can. The service is atrocious. 
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In addition paying with the Southern Key can result in you paying a higher fare, since they don’t offer all ticket types through it.
They give wishy-washy answers in their FAQ that more tickets will be available but they’ve said that for years.
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Lies. Mine won’t do PAYG (Great Northern) and it doesn’t extend to Peterborough.
The Southern branded key does, in a scheme called “key go” (http://www.southernrailway.com/tickets-and-fares/the-key-smartcard/keygo/). Thameslink & Great Northern branded keys were really a two minute job for them and not something they’ve focused on, yet. It was a rushed release.
In regards to ticket availability this seems to be an issue across the board. c2c at the moment has the best smartcard across the National Rail network, boasting features like Flexi seasons, the first to implement automatic delay repay, off-peak day tickets being available (not super off peak yet), and railcard tickets allowed. They are also in the middle of a trial for instant deployment of the cards and retail of smartcard tickets in stations.
The government has ploughed more money behind c2c’s scheme because it is a smaller route so easier to use it as the lab rats 
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