Post Office Ltd in Europe’s largest contactless payment rollout
The UK’s Post Office Ltd is to install contactless payment terminals across its network of more than 11,500 branches from next week. The company said rolling out the technology to 30,000 counter positions from 6th June will see it becoming the biggest user of contactless acceptance technology in Europe.
The project should be completed by October.
Post Office Ltd is working with HSBC Merchant Services to install the technology, which will allow customers to pay for products and services in post offices using credit and debit cards without the need to swipe a card, enter a PIN or provide a signature.
The system will also allow payments via special applications on mobile smartphones using Near Field Communication technology.
It will mean customers paying for items of GBP 20 or less by tapping their card or phone over a reader at the point of sale, and should help to reduce queues in UK post offices.
Lesley Sewell, the chief information officer at Post Office Ltd, said: “Contactless will bring huge benefits to our customers by increasing choice and reducing transaction times.”
Sewell added that the adoption of contactless technology was part of the overall transformation of the Post Office network being carried out over the next few years, aiming for branches to become “more customer-focused, opening for longer and providing services in a convenient and efficient manner”.
“Convenience and speed”
Post Office Ltd said the new system would be compatible with MasterCard PayPass and Visa PayWave cards, which are becoming increasingly widespread in the UK.
Marion King, president of MasterCard UK & Ireland said her company’s PayPass system was already accepted at 425,000 locations in 37 countries.
Mark Austin, head of contactless at Visa Europe, said his company had supplied 21m contactless Visa cards in the UK, and was forecasting reaching 30m by the end of the year.
“Our research tells us that people who experience contactless payment love the convenience and speed that it enables,” he said, and regarding the Post Office announcement added: “This announcement marks a major milestone in making that technology even more widely available across the UK.”
