As a growing number of United Kingdom-based merchants adopt contactless payment technology as part of a broad regional effort leading up to the 2012 Olympic Games, specific retailers are seeing the technology’s benefits.
But at least one analyst remains skeptical that broad contactless adoption will be a silver bullet for merchants or consumers.
Slug & Lettuce, a popular UK-based pub chain operated by The Stonegate Pub Company Ltd., is now accepting contactless payments at 80 pubs across the country. The rollout follows a test with Barclaycard, which issues contactless cards and processed 1,500 contactless transactions in one month, according to a Barclaycard press release.
Barclaycard, which has issued more than 11.4 million contactless cards, is doing a lot to push contactless payments, including retooling a TV ad to promote the speed and convenience mobile contactless payments (
The pub operator said the speed of contactless transactions was key in the decision to adopt the new payment method. “The trial…reduced queuing significantly, giving diners smooth and quick service,” George Wright, head of marketing for The Stonegate Pub Company, said in the press release. “Our customers are time sensitive and don’t want to be limited in their choice of food due to the amount of cash they have on them at the time.” The company said it expects to roll out contactless payments to its other pub chains, though it did not provide details.
But some analysts are not certain the technology is delivering what Barclaycard and its merchants are promising. New York-based Auriemma Consulting Group’s anecdotal research on the UK consumer market shows that consumers may try contactless payments once for a test but do not find it compelling because the experience is no different than use a chip-and-pin card and ultimately does not save time, Megan Bramlette, director, tells PaymentsSource.
“Are we talking about saving a second or a minute?” she asks. “The consumer still has to wait in the queue and still has to take the card out of their wallet, so I would challenge that it saves time; A second or two is really not going to drive that change to contactless payments.” She suggests also that the human factor of handling the transactions, not the actual technology is what slows contactless payment applications down.
Nevertheless, Barclaycard is doing becoming effective at rolling out contactless payments, another London-based analyst tells PaymentsSource. “This shows that Barclaycard is continuing to promote contactless in the UK and invest into building out an acceptance infrastructure by going after natural early adopter merchant segments such as entertainment and food & beverage,” says Zilvinas Bareisis, a senior analyst at Celent.
Representatives from Barclaycard and The Stonegate Pub Company did not respond by press time.
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