Millionth contactless card issued
Barclaycard announced it had issued its one millionth contactless payment card in the UK.
The group, which recently said it planned to spend a seven figure sum on developing the technology, said all newly issued Barclaycard Platinum cards would now include a contactless payment function.
Other cards in the group's portfolio that include the technology are Barclaycard OnePulse, and the recently re-issued Goldfish and Morgan Stanley cards, which were acquired by the group earlier this year.
Contactless payment cards enable people to pay for items costing £10 or less, simply by touching their card against a sensor, without even having to take it out of their wallet.
Barclaycard said sandwich group Pret A Manger had become the latest retailer to sign up to using the new technology.
It now has contactless payment terminals installed in all of its London outlets, and plans to introduce them to all of its 178 stores during the next six months. More than 6,000 shops across the UK now have the technology to use the cards installed, ranging from high street chains such as Coffee Republic and Eat to independent retailers such as dry cleaners.
Barclaycard also published research on Thursday showing that 98% of people with a contactless payment card thought it was easy to use and 88% thought it speeded up the time it took to pay for items such as a cup of coffee.
Just over half of people said they would be happy to use one of the cards to buy a cup of coffee, while 48% would use it to buy a sandwich and more than a third would pay for a newspaper or bottle of water using one of the cards.
Eight out of 10 people said they already used contactless cards in other areas of their lives, such as a gym card or an Oyster card on London transport. Around 95% of those questioned also said they bought at least one item a day that cost less than £10.
The group said this suggested that not only were many people already familiar with the technology, but that there was also high demand for it.
