Dear Readers,
The UK's Daily Mail - plus a few other interested parties -are up in arms by the apparent failure of contactless payments to live up to their ease-of-use and secure payment promises. To make matters worse, the problems that have arisen have done so in that bastion of English shopping - Marks and Spencer.
M&S must be wondering what they have done to deserve the wrath of the Daily Mail over a couple of 'isolated' incidents. The story, in a nutshell and reported by a number of tabloids in the UK, goes like this: A customer was surprised when she tried to pay by Chip&Pin at her local store and ended up paying with her contactless card. She says her contactless card was further than 4cm away from the terminal when she visited Marks and Spencer in April and tried to pay with her regular Lloyds debit card.
In her words; "I put my card into the reader and the assistant was asking whether or not I wanted cash back. Before I could answer, the transaction came up as complete and the till issued a receipt so I hadn't put in a PIN at all at that stage. I queried it with an assistant and she looked rather puzzled and looked at the receipt and compared it to my card and realised that the numbers didn't tally."
The customer recognised that the four digits on the till receipt belonged to a contactless-enabled card she had in her purse, which she was holding in her other hand, although she says that she had not realised until then that this card was able to make contactless payments. Even when she realised it could, she thought her purse was about a foot away from the terminal when the payment was taken.
The customer explained what had happened to a M&S manager, who asked her to try to repeat the transaction so he could see it himself. Again, the contactless card was debited instead of the debit card she had intended to make the payment from. M&S refunded the two transactions and a third attempt to use the debit card to pay was successful. http://bit.ly/114zzpM
This type of story is not just taking place in various stores. The Daily Mail, not one to give up when they smell blood (or more column inches), have written on the subject of discovering their Barclaycard inadvertently paying for their bus fare rather than their Oyster card.
In his own words, journalist Simon Lambert recounts the problem he was experiencing. "I first spotted this when I saw a series of bus fares on my statement, buses that I thought I had paid for using my Oyster card. I discovered that my credit card was contactless and is set up to be able to pay for bus fares. It's important to note here that I didn't know I had a contactless Barclaycard that worked. I was vaguely aware they were sending out new cards that were contactless, but I have never used mine as such and certainly hadn't activated anything to do so. Not knowing there is a contactless card in my wallet is my own fault, of course. I probably should have checked it properly, yet I suspect I'm not the only person who has unwittingly ended up with one. What irked me, however, was not that I had now had a contactless card, but that it had been automatically set up to pay for buses and could therefore override my Oyster card. After haranguing Barclaycard and getting them to talk to their technical people, the answer, says Mr. Lambert was 'the only way round this is for you to get an extra wallet.'" (http://bit.ly/199vF6F )
An interesting story and one that is going to be repeated again and again until realisation dawns concerning the more physical actions of doing something different when paying with a card in the future. And there will be more of these instances, no doubt. After all, according to Visa, contactless usage has “reached a critical point of adoption across Europe.”
According to the numbers, monthly transaction numbers across Europe reached more than 19 million in March 2013 and the company say that over €1billion has now been spent on contactless cards and smartphones equipped with a Visa payWave app. Visa Europe claim that one in four Visa cards in the UK are now contactless and that the UK made 5.3 million contactless transactions in the month of March. (http://wp.me/p1Jrjn-22K)
With this being the case, expect similar (mock) outrage as stories similar to these get repeated. Which reminds me, I better educate my Mum about here new contactless Barclaycard...
Until next week.
Regards,
Steve Atkins
Contactless Intelligence
This week on C-ITV
Visa Europe claims growth of 46% in contactless payments in last three months alone! http://wp.me/p1Jrjn-22K
Twitter, NFC, cabs and Robbie Williams... http://wp.me/p1Jrjn-23P
MasterCard and Visa certifies dragonFly NFC SIM from Oberthur http://wp.me/p1Jrjn-23M
VIDEO: The Endless Shelf - The future for digital displays and mobile payments? http://wp.me/p1Jrjn-22Q
VIDEO: Tapit's winning CMA entry - the 'Halo 4' campaign http://wp.me/p1Jrjn-242
VIDEO: NXP says MiFare is not just for transport - think bigger... http://wp.me/p1Jrjn-23Y
VIDEO: Tap and Go with Tami from Barclaycard http://wp.me/p1Jrjn-205
VIDEO: G&D talks 'Portigo' – their mobile wallet solution. http://wp.me/p1Jrjn-22V
Payments & m-Commerce
'You'll need to carry two wallets to stop your Barclaycard randomly paying for buses' http://bit.ly/199vF6F
Hungarian mobile payment system on schedule despite financing setback http://bit.ly/17T13HF
T-Mobile Blocking Google Wallet to Benefit Isis http://bit.ly/18brVjJ
M&S customers pay twice on contactless payment cards - despite standing a foot from the till http://bit.ly/114zzpM
Contactless 'charging errors' at Marks and Spencer http://bbc.in/114ztOV
Google Wallet: Gen Y credit card? http://on.mktw.net/17T1fX9
Apple’s Contextually Aware Digital Wallet Combines Passbook Features http://bit.ly/17T1nGg
BK Delivers adds MasterCard's digital wallet service http://bit.ly/17T1BgC
Contactless payments reach 'watershed moment' - Visa Europe http://bit.ly/10LbuZi
LevelUp partners with NCR to bring mobile payments to more restaurants http://bit.ly/10LbYi5
Finnish telco Elisa turns to Savantor for mobile payments guidance http://bit.ly/10LbSGY
The Gemalto Netsize Guide: M-commerce on the move http://bit.ly/10LbJ6A
MPayMe, First Data team up for m-payment services in Asia-Pacific http://bit.ly/10LbE2S
Will Retailers Own Mobile Payments In The US http://bit.ly/10LbB7d
Hungary state m-payment system to launch on time http://bit.ly/10Lc9K8
The Wallets Big Digital Transformation http://bit.ly/199vjNp
From your wallet to Google Wallet: your digital payment options http://bit.ly/167cfk2
Boost Mobile Customers No Longer Need to Carry Cash with Launch of Boost Mobile Wallet http://bit.ly/167cdZJ
Vesta launches m-wallet for prepay operators http://bit.ly/12wEQsK
how safe are the new contactless bank cards? http://bit.ly/167csE0
Consumer awareness of contactless payment doubles as more retailers continue to invest http://bit.ly/167cprU
SumUp, One Of Europe’s Many Mobile Payments Startups, Launches In Russia http://tcrn.ch/12wFhDl
NFC & Mobile
C-Sam speeds NFC development with applets and testing services http://bit.ly/17T1hOK
NFC stickers impress retailers at Sydney show http://bit.ly/10LbWGU
JanSport runs NFC outdoor ads in New York http://bit.ly/10LcaxF
Isis Gears Up for National Launch Despite Challenges Ahead http://bit.ly/199vlom
MasterCard Prepares to Offer PayPass on Embedded Chips in Samsung NFC Phones http://bit.ly/199vkAN
Panel: NFC Has Role to Play in Health and Fitness Applications;
Though It’s Not for All Uses http://bit.ly/199vgB7
NFC phone for care workers goes worldwide http://bit.ly/167c4Fn
Star Trek Into Darkness gets NFC promotion at airports http://bit.ly/12wFeYf
Milan airport installs 50,000 NFC tags http://bit.ly/12wFaHW
SuperTooth adds NFC ‘phones http://bit.ly/12wEUZl
Transportation, Ticketing, Access, Security & Loyalty
GhanaWeb teams up with MTN to launch CPC advertising http://bit.ly/17T1dP2
Digital Payment Technologies and PassportParking Bring Parking Management to the Cloud http://on.wsj.com/17T1vpl
Narvesen expands NFC loyalty across Latvia http://bit.ly/167c7kz
New Rochelle to install parking meters that will talk to cellphone apps http://bit.ly/167cnA7
First Hull Trains launches prepaid Oyster cards service http://bit.ly/167cmMK
Public Transportation Users Predict Big Increases in the Use of Smartphones http://bit.ly/167ciwu
Think&Go NFC announces the commercialisation of their Dynamic NFC-Screens http://bit.ly/18k5loW
Other News & Opinion Articles
India’s RuPay challenges MasterCard and Visa in m-POS market http://bit.ly/17T1zFt
France becomes Europe's first card fraud victim http://bit.ly/10Lbp7J
Square will challenge PayPal with its own peer-to-peer cash service http://bit.ly/10LbwQQ
Mobile Payment Startup Payvia Buys Mogreet To Add Messaging-Based Marketing To Its Payment Platform http://tcrn.ch/10Lc8FW
Net Element to Acquire Aptito, a Next Generation Cloud-Based Point of Sale Payments Platform http://bit.ly/199vfxe
Square debuts Square Cash http://bit.ly/167cbRA
|
