MasterCard announced last week that the city of Kyiv in Ukraine became the latest metropolitan area to launch contactless payment acceptance at subway turnstiles, according to a press release.

Kyiv started the program June 19 as contactless acceptance is available at 17 stations across the subway system. The plan is to equip all 52 stations with contactless terminals by the end of the year, according to the announcement.

Kyiv joins the likes of cities such as Chicago and London in offering open-loop contactless acceptance for transit rides.

MasterCard said more than 20,000 subway rides have been paid using contactless cards and devices in the Kyiv subway system to date. About 1,500 contactless transactions are made daily. Cardholders from 19 countries have taken the opportunity to pay for subway rides using their cards and devices with MasterCard's contactless technology, according to the announcement.

"Implementing contactless payments will also help both the Kyiv Subway and the Kyiv Municipal State Administration to optimize operating costs and to create a fare payment system integrating different modes of transport in the future," said Vira Platonova, country manager of the MasterCard Europe representative office in Ukraine and Moldova.