IMGCAP(1)]
Following delays, Auchan Group hopes finally to launch its large contactless-payment trial by mid-February, according to Jean François Marconnet, head of card development at Banque Accord, Auchan's banking and card-issuing arm. The France-based hypermarket chain had planned to conduct the pilot last year, and Banque Accord already has issued 22,000 cobranded payment cards that carry a contactless chip with MasterCard Worldwide's PayPass application, Marconnet tells CardLine Global sister publication Cards&Payments. Cardholders will be able to tap the cards for purchases less than 25 euros (US$33.60) without entering a PIN for each transaction. Auchan also has equipped one of its hypermarkets, or supercenters, with contactless readers at point-of-sale terminals. The project originally had been planned for last spring and was going to involve 150,000 cobranded PayPass cards and four or five of Auchan's hypermarkets, each with about 80 point-of-sale terminals equipped for contactless, Cards&Payments earlier reported. Among other problems were difficulties installing and integrating the contactless technology at the point of sale, Marconnet says. Auchan wants to make sure the system is working properly before it gives the go-ahead for the trial, he says. The chain will hold the smaller trial at a hypermarket in Lille, near the retailer's headquarters. Based on card numbers, the trial, when launched, still will be one of the largest in Continental Europe. If successful, Auchan likely would expand the trial to four other stores, Marconnet says. Eventually, the retailer would roll out contactless payment to its 121 hypermarkets and possibly later to its more than 400 supermarkets in France and its stores in other countries. The bank has about 1.9 million payment cards on issue in France, just less than 85% of them private-label. Auchan also is interested in enabling customers to do contactless payments and electronic couponing using phones that support Near Field Communication technology. The retailer, along with its much larger hypermarket rival, France-based Carrefour Group, were charter members of a working group launched in November in France to set guidelines for e-couponing and other loyalty on NFC phones. Observers expect the phones to hit the market in significant numbers in 2010. Carrefour also plans to issue contactless cards, sources have said.
