Everything Everywhere, the joint Orange and T-Mobile venture, are today announcing the UK’s first ever commercial “contactless” mobile payments service. It’s rolling out in the second quarter of 2011 and will be available in over 40,000 stores.
In partnership with Barclaycard it’ll mean that you can pay for goods with your mobile phone simply by waving your handset against a contactless reader. It uses a SIM-based payment system for extra security with Mastercard ensuring that mobile transactions ensuring that readers are ready.
Gerry McQuade, Chief Development Officer, Everything Everywhere, states..
“This is the beginning of a revolution in how we pay for things on the high street. It’s a cultural shift that is as important as the launch of the personal credit card or cash machines. We’re making something that’s been talked about for many years a reality and very soon, using your mobile to buy a sandwich, a cinema ticket or in time, even something bigger like a computer will simply be the norm.”
Update – Morning all and thanks for your questions on this post. Many of you emailed in to ask if a special type of handset is needed. The guys at Everything Everywhere tell us..
“The handset will need to be NFC enabled. We have been in close partnership with some of the major manufacturers in the industry to select appropriate handsets, and will be revealing these to our customers at a later date.”
Wayne Gimblett also emailed in to ask about the security aspect of this. He wanted to know what would happen if you had your phone stolen and a thief used it to pay – would it be easy just to wave your handset at a device? We’re told that..
“All contactless mobile payments are processed online. This means that if you cancel your phone because it is lost, damaged or stolen, no transactions can be completed. Furthermore, there is a single initial point of customer contact to allow you to block your phone and the payments in one (this obviously gives an added benefit of security as all transactions complete a full authorisation cycle before being processed).
In the unlikely event of fraud, contactless transactions, whether through a mobile, debit card or credit card benefit from the same 100% fraud guarantee as standard transactions nationwide, and customers would be immediately and fully reimbursed for any losses.
It’s worth noting customers can add their own PIN code for their mobile wallet on the phone, which means you get the extra security with a request for a PIN every time the phone is used for any payment. This security feature can be turned on or off at the customer’s discretion.
Also worth noting that mobile payments will be limited to £15 which is the contactless industry standard”
Dive in to the press release below..
The UK’s first commercial launch of contactless mobile payments by Everything Everywhere and Barclaycard, set to revolutionise buying on the high street
· The UK’s first commercial contactless mobile payments service, to be rolled out by Everything Everywhere and Barclaycard by early summer (second quarter of 2011)
· The new service will offer consumers greater convenience and control on the high street with over 40,000 stores ready to accept contactless payments
· Industry backed secure SIM-based payments approach, ensures excellent purchase protection for consumers
· Latest move builds on Everything Everywhere and Barclaycard’s ongoing partnership, which has already produced a co-branded contactless credit card and the forthcoming Orange Cash pre-paid contactless card
27th January 2011, London: Everything Everywhere and Barclaycard today announced that the first contactless mobile phone payment solution for UK consumers will launch by early summer. The move will usher in a new era for consumers, offering greater simplicity, convenience and control and will change the way payments are made on UK high streets.
Barclaycard and Orange, who announced their strategic partnership to bring contactless mobile payments to market in 2009, believe this will be the biggest revolution in payments since credit cards were introduced in the UK by Barclaycard over 40 years ago.
Commenting on the announcement, Gerry McQuade, Chief Development Officer, Everything Everywhere, said: “This is the beginning of a revolution in how we pay for things on the high street. It’s a cultural shift that is as important as the launch of the personal credit card or cash machines.
“We’re making something that’s been talked about for many years a reality and very soon, using your mobile to buy a sandwich, a cinema ticket or in time, even something bigger like a computer will simply be the norm.
“As Britain’s biggest communications company, we’re proud to be delivering this technical and cultural innovation to the UK through the Orange brand. Orange and Barclaycard customers will be the first to be able to use their mobiles to make payments on the high street wherever contactless payments are accepted. This is part of our wider strategy to re-define what people use their mobiles for, with mobile payments being the start.”
David Chan, CEO of Barclaycard Consumer Europe, said: “Barclaycard is well known as a leader in helping consumers and businesses to make and take payments in their everyday lives. Finding new and better ways of doing this is what drives us, so it’s exciting, with Orange, to be giving consumers in the UK the choice to make contactless payments on their mobile phone as well as their card. Barclaycard is going to lead the innovation and explosive growth you’ll see in mobile payments.
“I believe that future generations will find it surprising that early this century we were still carrying separate items to buy goods and to communicate with each other. As payment experts, our role is to make it easier, more convenient and incredibly secure for people to make purchases and manage their money while on the move.”
Working with the world’s leading handset manufacturers, the new offering from Orange and Barclaycard will enable customers to use their mobiles to pay for goods and services at more than 40,000 retailers that use contactless technology, by simply waving their mobile phone against a contactless reader.
The new contactless mobile payment technology has been developed to ensure customers’ transactions and personal data will be protected and secure. The launch proposition will focus on an industry backed, SIM-based approach to payments ensuring enhanced security for customers, as well as to initially provide a single point of customer care contact. MasterCard will provide the payment capability for the contactless mobile transactions.
Contactless mobile phone payments will feature as part of the wider Orange portfolio of products, developed in conjunction with Barclaycard, and which already features a contactless co-branded credit card as well as the forthcoming contactless Orange Cash prepaid payment card.
The move builds on existing contactless payment technology with 11.6m contactless credit and debit cards already in circulation, of which over 10m have been issued by Barclaycard and Barclays. There are also already 42,500 live Barclaycard contactless terminals in retail outlets including Pret a Manger, EAT, Little Chef and, soon, Co-Op.
Further details on the roll out will be made in the forthcoming months.
Wait a second… am I reading it right or is this *just* for Orange users? What the hell was the whole point of T-Orange joint venture then if not having shared offerings like this?! As a T-Mobile customer I’m hugely disappointed by this. :/
Its hugely problematic regardless – you need a new phone, that supports the system and, worse, it has to be the *right* system (and we know what – say – Apple’s track record is on playing nice with other people’s standards). In the UK NFC, at least for payments, is going to be defined by the Barclays system – the roll outs they’re currently announcing (McDonalds for one) make that fairly clear – but that doesn’t mean the rest of the world has to follow.