Londoners can now tap their phone to pay for city parking

London first in North America to 'turn on the tap' Honk Mobile has launched a new option at municipal parking lots and meters that lets you use your NFC-enabled cell to pay for parking.

London is the first city in North America to "turn on the tap."

Honk Mobile launched its new "tap to pay" option at municipal parking lots and meters on Thursday morning.

CEO Michael Back says, you "Just hold your phone over if you are NFC-enabled and hit the tap button here."

Drivers can now pay by holding their smartphone to one of these special Honk signs located in parking lots or stickers placed on existing meters.

Honk-tap uses special near-field communication (NFC) technology developed by the company.

Since launching in 2017 Honk has already been used 300,000 times in London, saving enough paper parking receipts to stretch 27 kilometres.

Alternatively Londoners can still use coins, credit cards, or the Honk app to pay for parking.

Back says this could be the first step to a meter-less future.

"It's new to the world, patent pending technology. But London, Ont. is the first city in the world to launch this technology city-wide and it's meant to replace the parking meter long term."