OREANDA-NEWS. November 16, 2010. ZAO Citibank announced the launch of the Citi Express service, which will allow Muscovites to use Citibank credit cards and pay for rides in the Moscow metro, reported the press-centre of Citibank.

The service will be provided through a microchip and an antenna built-into plastic. For safety considerations, at the time of the issue the chip is inactive; and prior to its use at the metro, it requires activation by presenting it to the metro ticket office. Subsequently, the user would just need to tap the card at the card-reader by the metro gate.

The fare will be charged to the client’s credit card based on the metro system data at the beginning of the following calendar month. The price of a single fare will depend on the total number of rides: the more rides a client takes, the cheaper the fare per ride will be. In addition, since only the actual rides will be charged to the card, the cardholder will not have to pay for unused rides.

"We are glad to announce the launch of a new service that would allow our clients to save a lot of time and money, as well as free them from the need to choose between a card that gives its user certain bonuses and a specialized card that can pay for the metro fare," – noted Yuriy Topunov, Head of Credit Cards Department at ZAO Citibank.

Holders of the following credit cards may activate Citi Express service: Miles&More and Miles&More World; Aeroflot and Aeroflot Gold; Stockmann-Citi and Stockmann-Citi Gold; MTS-Citibank and MTS-Citibank World; as well as CashBack. No monthly fee will be charged until 31 January 2010 if the customer signs up for the service from 20 October to 30 November inclusive. In addition, clients may apply for a separate credit card, CitiExpress Card, which does not have a bonus component, but includes the metro payment option charge in its annual maintenance fee.

The service is offered jointly with Citibank’s partners: GUP Moscow Metropolitan; ZAO Express Card – a system integrator of the "touchless payment for the ride" project at Moscow metropolitan; as well as ZAO Rozan-Finance – one of the largest producers of plastic cards in Russia.