Acceptance: British Post Offices Migrating to Contactless

• Post Office Limited has just announced that nearly 30,000 contactless payment terminals were to be rolled out across is branches to encompass both card and mobile payments acceptance.

• 200 branches will be equipped starting 6th June and full deployment is scheduled to be completed by October this year. Locations have been selected with regard to their vicinity to the soon to take place Olympic sports events.

• On this occasion, MasterCard and Visa are also partnering with Post Office Limited to cater for the promotion of their solutions, PayPass and payWave respectively. According to Visa, there are over 21 million payWave cards in the UK today.

Source: Press release

• Post Office Limited includes a network of 11,500 branches, and insists that its move toward contactless acceptance should provide it with the means to stand as a European leader in this sector.

• This initiative may also help generalise these technologies and have the general public get used to opting for their Smartphone or contactless card for day-to-day purchases.

• The advent of mobile contactless payment is being proclaimed year after year, with no pilot tests significant enough to sustain these allegations; yet, contactless cards, for their part, are on their way to generalisation. Visa however plans that the UK should count 150,000 compatible points of sales before the end of the year, or 50% more than today. France is also turning towards renewing most payment cards through implementing contactless features by default.