Barclays intros contactless payment sticker

Financial services provider Barclaycard has introduced a sticker-based contactless payments offering  to support mobile money transfer service Pingit in the UK.

The PayTag sticker allows Barclaycard customers to make payments with any mobile phone (or object they put the sticker on) by tapping the device to a reader at the point of sale. PayTag can be used to make payments of £15 and under, which will rise to £20 in June. It is available at no cost, exclusively to Barclaycard Visa cardholders.

“More than half of us say that the item we’re most lost without is our mobile phone, so we’re giving people the option of using them to make easy, convenient, everyday payments without the need to upgrade their current handset,” said  David Chan, CEO of Barclaycard Consumer Europe.

Visa recently predicted that the number of contactless point-of-sale terminals in the UK will rise by 50 per cent to 150,000 this year, stimulated by major retailer such as McDonalds, WH Smith and Tesco investing in contactless PoS terminals.

By the end of 2012, London buses will also accept contactless payments, followed by the Tube and the rest of the transport network in the Capital in 2013.

Barclays also announced a joint initiative with Orange last week, allowing credit or debit card holders from all UK banks to load money onto the Barclaycard mobile payments application, the Quick Tap wallet. The initiative will open up contactless payments to more Orange customers. Orange also confirmed that it would be making Quick Tap available on a range of Android smartphones.

Barclays made its entrance in the mobile money space in February this year with Pingit; a person-to-person service for sending and receiving money using mobile phone numbers but has long been a champion of contactless payment services. Although the PayTag is a one trick pony, it may well help embed the concept in the minds of consumers.