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MasterCard Worldwide has started to focus on convincing larger merchants, including fast-food chains and pharmacies, to accept contactless cards in the United Kingdom, Catherine Murchie, the card network's head of PayPass product management for Europe, tells CardLine Global sister publication Cards&Payments. PayPass is MasterCard's contactless payment application, found on 61 million cards globally, she says. "We are focusing on bringing in Tier 1 merchants" such as McDonald's Corp., bookseller Borders Group and The Boots Co., a pharmacy chain that in May said it would test contactless payments in 15 stores in London and six in Liverpool (CardLine Global, 13 May). Boots, in fact, claimed to be among the first larger, mainstream retailers in the UK to test contactless payment cards. Most of the contactless effort in the UK so far has focused on transit and merchants that handle small-value retail purchases around transit stations in the London area, such as "sandwich-bar type locations," Murchie says. "We've started to get good feedback from London office workers." In October, the Liverpool Stagecoach bus network said it would accept contactless payments, a sign that the push is branching out from the British capital. The contactless-payment effort in the UK initially focused on "smaller, independent stores," unlike in Canada and the United States, where larger retailers were involved from the start, Murchie says. "One of the things we realized from the experience we saw in Canada and the U.S. [was that] larger merchants really helped generate an awareness" about contactless payments," she says. In France, at least one major retailer is taking part in the early stages of that country's contactless card rollout. The financial-services arm of Carrefour Group plans to deploy as many as 4,600 contactless-payment terminals in its hypermarkets and other stores by the end the year (CardLine Global, 27 March). Carrefour's Société des Paiements, or PASS, subsidiary also says it plans to issue 2.5 million contactless payment cards enabled with the PayPass application. Contactless payments generally have focused around "speed and convenience," Murchie says. But the technology holds more appeal than simply getting customers quickly through checkout, she adds. Some retailers, including large grocery stores, "take a broader view [about] innovation," with contactless payments providing an enjoyable experience for the consumer, Murchie says. Whatever the appeal for large merchants, they seem all but certain to attach loyalty programs to contactless payments. "We're seeing a lot of it," Murchie says. "It's part of the attraction." Meanwhile, besides France, the UK and Turkey, contactless payments are entering such other European countries as Poland and Germany, Murchie says. Some 153,000 merchant locations in 30 countries accept PayPass cards, with Hungary among the most recent, she says.
