Pret A Manger eats up contactless payments

Credit card issuer Barclaycard and takeaway food chain Pret A Manger have announced the rollout of contactless payment systems at 178 stores.

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Pret has already deployed 'wave and pay' facilities at seven of the sites and expects the rest of the deployment - which will include stores including Birmingham, Brighton, London, Manchester, Oxford and York - to be complete by April 2009.

According to Barclaycard, contactless payments are available in more than 6,000 retail outlets, including Coffee Republic, EAT and Yo! Sushi. More than one million contactless cards have been issued to Barclaycard customers.

Contactless payments are being encouraged by card issuers for payments of less than £10 for purchases people would typically use cash for. Handling cash is a bane for banks and merchants because of the administration overhead and handling costs involved.

Barclaycard head of contactless and card development, Richard Mould, said: "It's another step in the journey started with the launch of Barclaycard OnePulse. Pret A Manger is a great merchant that is right smack in the middle of the grab-and-go market, where speed of service is of most importance. There is a customer need here, but it also helps merchants improve the bottom line by shortening queues and work their store assets by increasing sales volumes."

The technology for the service is provided by retail payments systems specialist Commedia.