Spanish department store group El Corte Inglés has installed thousands of contactless terminals in its shopping centres, enabling customers to make payments with a tap of their cards or mobile phones.
Having secured Visa Europe certification, the group has so far replaced around a quarter of its terminals - 5200 - with the new contactless units. By the end of the year, 60% of all terminals should have the technology.
Customers will be able to make low value purchases with a tap of their bank card or NFC-enabled mobile phones. For purchases of more than EUR20, a PIN is also needed.
Tap and go payments have been gathering momentum in Spain - in November up to 2.1 million Visa contactless transactions took place in the country, up nearly 400% on the previous year.
Luis García Cristobal, GM, Spain and Portugal, Visa, says: "It is very important that leading retail groups, such as El Corte Inglés, commit themselves with the innovation of payment technologies, so that their clients can benefit from the convenience, speed and security offered by contactless payments."