If this is the future I'll give it a miss

Barclaycard has gone all high tech with its marketing for the new OnePulse card and set up a Micro site called ‘The institute for future living’.

A fictional character called Professor Danny shows you how much easier life can be if you use the magical contactless card. Danny explains OnePulse whilst a video of a woman who simply can’t manage to pay for her coffee the old fashioned way – with cash – runs in the background.

There is also an ‘interactive’ element where you’re prompted to click on the coffee shop's payment terminal so that Danny can use his OnePulse card to help the poor individual out. I'm sure all the kids will be desperate to get involved!

It’s all very pretty but what’s the point? I’ve no doubt that Barclaycard will do extremely well out of OnePulse - the Oyster card functionality definitely gives it an edge over rivals - but I doubt the Micro site will win many customers.

To me, it looks like Barclaycard just wants to appear cutting edge for the sake of it and personally I'd have given the site a miss and spent the money on a few extra posters.