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United Kingdom-based Barclaycard said Wednesday it would provide credit cards, including some with contactless chips, to some 1.7 million customers acquired when the issuer's parent, Barclays PLC, in February bought the Goldfish brand from United States-based Discover Financial Services. The move, which Barclaycard describes as "one of the largest credit card-customer transfers in the UK," would help the issuer meet its recently announced goal of issuing at least 1 million contactless cards by the end of the year (CardLine Global, 4 Sept). Barclaycard has issued about 100,000 contactless cards, CardLine Global sister publication Cards&Payments has reported. Though a Barclaycard spokesperson declined to confirm that figure Wednesday, the issuer said "some 1 million of these [new] cards" will carry contactless-payment applications. "There are more announcements to come" regarding Barclaycard's contactless plans, but the spokesperson declined to provide details. The cards will go to customers throughout the UK, the spokesperson says. Most of the contactless-payment activity in the UK has centered on the London area, where Barclaycard issues contactless cards that carry transit-payment applications for the capital city's mass-transit system. The Goldfish announcement comes days after Barclaycard CEO Antony Jenkins promised a renewed push for contactless payments in the UK. Contactless rollouts began about a year ago, but card numbers and merchant acceptance have fallen short of initial projections (CardLine Global, 9 Sept.). Nick Holland, an analyst for United States-based research firm Aite Group, tells CardLine Global he credits Barclaycard with its "forward thinking" about contactless and says the UK has the advantage of having already switched to a system based on chip cards, albeit cards that still require contact chips. Still, contactless backers face resistance from merchants who do not want to pay for upgrades to make card terminals contactless-enabled. He also wonders how many merchants really desire the speedy transactions offered by contactless. "Speed doesn't matter much unless you are McDonald's," he says. Take into account that contactless cards typically cost more than contact cards, and "it's still a hard sell," Holland says. Barclaycard says the Discover portfolio it bought contained 11 card brands, including Goldfish and Morgan Stanley. Former Discover customers will receive "one of nine new or existing cards from Barclaycard with a guarantee that [the new card] will have the same or enhanced benefits," the issuer says in a statement. Some cards will carry the Goldfish name and related images. Barclaycard expects to complete the effort within two months.
