By Andy McCue, 26 June 2006 15:30
NEWS
Visa is to trial contactless debit cards in London this autumn that will allow shoppers to pay for low-value goods by simply touching their card against an electronic reader.
The technology will be used in a variety of retail outlets in London, including fast-food restaurants and newsagents, according to a report in The Observer.
Visa is planning on using RFID-enabled dual-use debit cards for the trial, based on its Visa Contactless payment technology, but is also understood to be in talks with mobile manufacturers to use near field communications (NFC) technology that will enable the phone to be used instead of a card.
MasterCard and the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) have already announced their own plans to trial contactless debit cards for 1,000 of the high-street bank's staff at the retail outlets at RBS' Edinburgh campus HQ. The pilot will use MasterCard's PayPass technology.
Both trials will be for low-value transactions under £10 and consumers will be able to pay by tapping their cards against a reader without needing to sign a receipt or enter a PIN number. A security check asking the card-holder to enter their PIN number will be done only after a certain number of transactions.
The Visa technology is already being used in Asia and the US and the company is looking to establish the contactless payment technology in the UK ahead of the London Olympics in 2012, according to the newspaper report.
A Visa spokesman declined to give any more details of the plans except to confirm there will be a trial of the contactless payment technology in London later this year.
Transport for London put its own plans to add contactless payment functionality to Oyster travel cards on hold earlier this year, citing difficulties in sorting out the commercial arrangements, despite interest from retail outlets such as Pret A Manger.
Comments
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1. galley slave#41
I suppose now we wait for the story that the banks and credit card companies are complaining about fraud.
NEVER LEARN WILL THEY!
GREEDY BUGGERS!!
2. David Gaskill
There's already 10 million of them in use here in Hong Kong...
See: http://www.hong-kong-travel.org/Octopus.asp
David
3. richard A
Chip and PIN has really slowed things down and often fails...
So now we'll just return to the transaction speeds we had when petrol and Tube tickets could be bought by inserting a card without entering the PIN... but with less security. Whoopee!
I hope this contactless payment card doesn't fail as often as Oyster cards - mine dies every 3 months.
4. anonymous
The Banks won't complain about fraud...
...it doesn't affect them - they just pass on the cost of it to us hapless customers.
We might, however, just hear the Met Police report a sharp rise in card theft. Maybe...
Glad I don't live in london anymore ;-)
5. anonymous
Unbelievable this system is just waiting to be abused. you drop your card someone picks it up and merrily runs round town with it buying goods under £10.00 runs up a bill of £200.00 and the card company say sorry we have no proof you didn't use the cards!
why bother with this system when they are insisting on pin numbers for other cards? talk about going backwards
6. anonymous
Clearly the last person didn't read the story properly - the cards will prompt for a pin after a certain number of transactions! I think it's a good idea but I'm a bit unsure about putting the feature on a mobile phone - they don't last longer than a year and are prone to be stolen/lost.
7. anonymous
The next story won't be about fraud with the use of this new technology for spending small amounts on a debit card with no contact needed. No, it will be from the banks - declaring that cash is to be phased out as it is no longer of any use!!!!!!!!!!!!
8. anonymous
Similar system has been used in Asia in places like japan, hong kong and singapore for many years. It is relatively stable. Long time since I heard about the octopus card failing at all!
Visa is just trying to muscle their way into the relatively immature, but proven market.
And while there are some types of fraud and crime that happen specifically due to the cards, it is no different from any other theft problems.
Singapore, for example, has some instances of theft of cards by smashing through the side windows of cars in carparks.