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Barclaycard will work with mobile operator Orange UK to develop contactless payments and other services for mobile phones, the United Kingdom-based credit card issuer said Monday. The two firms have formed a "strategic partnership" designed to produce cobranded Near Field Communication services along with related loyalty applications and mobile alerts, Barclaycard says in a statement. The services will rely on payment applications from MasterCard Worldwide. Details about timetables and specific projects were vague Monday, and neither Orange nor Barclaycard responded to requests for comment. The announcements give further proof that Barclaycard and its parent Barclays PLC are serious about pushing more consumers to use contactless payments even as the economy worsens. Last week, for example, Barclays began issuing its first Visa-branded contactless debit cards (CardLine Global, 4 March). Barclays, which has a debit card base of about 11.7 million, expects to issue 3 million contactless debit cards by 2010. Barclaycard, meanwhile, has issued at least 1.5 million contactless credit cards. Though Barclays says UK merchants have installed some 10,000 readers that can accept contactless cards, the relative lack of readers, especially in areas outside London, could slow efforts to get more merchants and consumers behind contactless payments, observers have said.
