The distinctive yellow Oyster card-reader badges will disappear from the Tube network under an exclusive sponsorship deal with Google worth almost £2 million.
A year-long contract with Transport for London’s commercial wing beginning next month will remove and replace the circular touch-in, touch-out pad stickers with the tech giant’s branded “G Pay” logos on a white background surrounded by a yellow circle.
The current swooshing card design will disappear for the first time since the introduction of the contactless readers nearly 17 years ago.
Card wallets have previously been sponsored by Yellow Pages, Direct Line and Ikea. The deal was signed in December between TfL subsidiary Transport Trading and Dublin-based Google Ireland.
Under the contract, TfL’s “obligations” include removing the existing yellow covers on all 5,686 readers across the network, swapping them with Google’s labels and replacing them at the end of the contract.
The firm said it hopes the branded readers will “encourage” travellers to use contactless payments more.
During the deal, Google’s contactless tap-to-pay rivals — the likes of Apple Pay, PayPal, Samsung Pay and Visa Checkout — are banned from advertising on “gates or paddles across the underground network”.
The new validator badges will be made from the same materials as the old pads, but may have a “different aesthetic finish”, the contract says.
At the end of its 12-month contract, Google will have first refusal on acquiring rights for another year if TfL wants another sponsorship deal.
Google said: “We are delighted to be partnering with TfL to encourage people to use contactless payments at gate-readers across London.”
