The Co-operative Group Ltd. and Barclaycard UK announced July 14 an agreement in which the grocery-store operator will become the first major United Kingdom food retailer to accept contactless payment.
Representatives from The Co-operative Group and Barclaycard were unable to comment on the agreement by PaymentsSource deadline.
The Co-operative Group entered into the agreement with Barclaycard in partnership with Visa Europe and will begin with a pilot involving 100 stores next year.
Visa appears to be at the forefront of contactless technology in the UK. The card company predicts its contactless cards to total 12 million by yearend (
If the pilot is successful, the Co-operative Group hopes to roll out contactless-payment terminals to the majority of its food stores for the 2012 Olympic Games. The United Kingdom is billing the Olympics as a contactless event in which consumers may use contactless payments for transportation, tickets and other low-value transactions.
Consumers may make contactless payments on Co-operative grocery store purchases of £15 or less (US$23 or 18 euros) without entering a personal identification number or inserting a credit or debit card into a payment terminal.
That Co-operative is the first grocery to launch this type of payment method is interesting because the company is “not really known for its innovation,” Matt Simester, director of Auriemma Consulting Group in the United Kingdom, tells PaymentsSource. “But it’s great the company has gone first, and other stores will rapidly follow,” he adds.
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