Orange and Barclaycard launch national mobile phone payment service

20 May 2011 | 10987 views | 5 teller

Orange and Barclaycard have formally launched 'Quick Tap', a contactless mobile payment service which allows consumers to make purchases on the high street using their mobile phone for the very first time.

Launching with a Quick Tap enabled version of one of Orange's best-selling devices, the Samsung Tocco Lite, the Samsung Tocco Quick Tap will be available on pay as you go and pay monthly price plans, with more handsets expected to follow from other device manufacturers in the coming months.

Barclaycard, Barclays debit or Orange Credit Card users can transfer funds of up to £100 onto the handset's Quick Tap app, after which the phone is ready to make payments of £15 and under in a single transaction. The device can be used at any retailer terminal capable of accepting contactless debit and credit cards.

The launch proposition will use a secure SIM-based approach to mobile payments, say the partners, with users having the option to enter a PIN on their handset before each transaction providing an additional layer of security.

Barclaycard says that contactless transactions via the phone benefit from the same 100% fraud guarantee as standard card transactions nationwide. If a customer cancels their phone because it is lost, damaged or stolen, no transactions can be completed.

The payment app, which sits on the home screen of all Quick Tap compatible handsets, contains information such as electronic statements detailing Quick Tap purchases so customers can keep an eye on their spending and manage finances on the go. To support the launch, Barclaycard is providing Orange customers with £10 cash added to their account upon activation, and 10% cash back on all Quick Tap purchases made in the first three months.

David Chan, CEO of Barclaycard Consumer Europe, says: "This is the first time that customers can use their mobile to pay for goods and services in shops across the UK rather than using cards or cash. They'll be able to do this, safe in the knowledge that this is a secure technology brought to them by the biggest names in payments and mobile technology.

Pippa Dunn, Orange VP, adds: "We no longer use our mobile phones simply for talking and texting - apps, cameras and music players allow us to use them for a lot more. So, making contactless payments with your mobile is a natural and really exciting innovation. It's going to start a revolution in the way we pay for things on the high street."

The launch comes the day after rival carrier O2 announced its plans to develop a mobile wallet that will ship later this year.

Comments: (5)

Comment on this story (membership required)

John Dring - Amdocs Digital Services - London | 20 May, 2011, 22:50

Another NFC story...

...the launch proposition will use a secure SIM-based approach to mobile payments...

Does this really mean that NFC is embedded in the SIM Card and this is yet another alias to a PrePay Barclaycard? In which case this is not what I call a Mobile Payments. Its still a card payment. I'm interested to get more detail before analysing further though. Can a user transfer balance from their mobile prepay account to the wallet, and vice versa for example.

1 thumb up! (Log in to thumb up)

Report

A Finextra member | 23 May, 2011, 09:07 Yet another payments application that uses a simple PIN to authorise a transaction. It needs an OTP. Whats the bet this PIN will be the same as their credit/debit card PIN? The arguement of low value security for low value transactions is lost.

0 thumbs up! (Log in to thumb up)

Report

John Dring - Amdocs Digital Services - London | 23 May, 2011, 14:54

Well at least here the PIN is optional, and redundant if you use a phone PIN.

But then, taking your NFC enabled credit card out from a wallet would be quicker anyway. As would paying cash, assuming small txns!

The point is, this is just transferring carrying the credit card from your wallet to your phone. The rest is the same except now you have a separate Prepay wallet account as well. The Orange Shop Web was off air last night so I couldn't check it then, but it looks like that balance (wallet) is held at BC. Apart from the NFC chipset and the Managing App, I am not sure the phone is doing anything else but hosting.

1 thumb up! (Log in to thumb up)

Report

Ketharaman Swaminathan - GTM360 Marketing Solutions - Pune | 24 May, 2011, 11:16

Barring a few exceptions (e.g., Boku, Zong and their Gen Y Mobile Payments competitors), most open-loop mobile payments available in the market today are based on an underlying credit/debit/prepaid card. As such, they only replace the physical card as a form factor but don't supplant the basic card account. I've never tired myself of voicing this point whenever I've come across articles and blogs that seem to suggest that Mobile NFC payments sound the death knell of banks' flourishing cards business. Thanks to Quick Tap, which explicitly involves a bank card brand, this point has become obvious.

With an upper ceiling of only GBP 15 per transaction, I'd opt for no password/PIN just for Quick Tap - why go through the inconvenience when the risk of fraud / loss is so limited? While a GBP 10 credit will entice sign-ups, I'm sure we'll see other measures going forward to sustain consumer interest once the novelty factor wears off. For example, a single 'PayPal meets KeyRing' type of app with a single password that stores all credit/debit/prepaid/loyalty cards owned by the consumer. This might sound a bit adventurous. But, right now, we seem to headed towards one app for each card - and one password for each app, for those inclined to passwords - and I doubt how many consumers will stand that level of 'app fatigue' and friction in the long term - all for making a payment which was never so difficult with cash, was it!

1 thumb up! (Log in to thumb up)

Report

Ketharaman Swaminathan - GTM360 Marketing Solutions - Pune | 25 May, 2011, 16:02

A single app for all credit/debit/prepaid/loyalty cards doesn't seem so adventurous after all. According to a story on NFCnews, ISIS is planning to launch exactly such an app that will store mobile coupons in addition. I just hope this plan of becoming the universal mWallet doesn't meet the same fate as ISIS' erstwhile goal of launching a brand new payments network to supplant Visa/MC/AmEx.

0 thumbs up! (Log in to thumb up)

Report