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The MetroCard’s time has come.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board on Wednesday awarded a $573 million contract to Cubic Transportation Systems to design a new method for riders to pay.

The swipe will be gone — and in its place, the tap.

“There’s all kinds of advantages of having tap-and-go,” MTA Chairman Joe Lhota said at the board meeting. “Even though you may find the swipe as almost instantaneous, believe me, what I’ve been able to observe in places that have the tap-and-go or the wand-and-go — it’s not even a tap — it moves a lot faster.”

Modeled after London’s Oyster Card, the system Cubic creates will allow riders to pay by tapping their smart phones or bank cards, which will be connected to a refillable transit account for fares.

Those options will be the first to hit turnstiles — digital readers will be placed in 500 subway turnstiles and 600 buses by 2019.

The MTA will then create its own tap credit card for people without smart phones or bank accounts. Those cards will be available in vending machines and retail outlets.

On buses, digital readers will be put on Select Bus Service routes to test out a proof-of-payment system with the new technology. By 2023, the MetroCard will be retired.

“This system has completely transformed the way people pay for travel for public transport in London, with over a billion journeys already made since it was first introduced in 2012,” said Mike Brown, Transport for London’s commissioner.

One outstanding question not detailed in the contract is the card’s name.

Boston riders use the CharlieCard, named after the Kingston Trio hit “M.T.A.,” a fare-hike-protest song about a fellow named Charlie trapped on a Beantown train, and Londoners keep an Oyster card, a metaphor for security and value.

Lhota said it was too soon to know if the name MetroCard will outlast the thin, magnetic-striped piece of plastic now used in the city. And if the name does change?

“I know it won’t be the JoeCard,” he said.