Everything Everywhere is launching a contactless mobile payment service later this year. It’ll use the Orange brand and will operate in partnership with Barclaycard. The two companies already offer a contactless NFC credit card.
The new service will use NFC technology embedded in a SIM card, which means the mobile phone itself won’t need an NFC chip. Everything Everywhere says it’ll be working with handset manufacturers to offer compatible phones.
Over 40,000 UK stores are currently equipped to accept contactless payments. Instead of inserting a credit or debit card in a slot to pay, customers simply touch their contactless card – or their mobile phone – on a special pad.
David Chan, CEO of Barclaycard Consumer Europe, said “Barclaycard is well known as a leader in helping consumers and businesses to make and take payments in their everyday lives. Finding new and better ways of doing this is what drives us, so it’s exciting, with Orange, to be giving consumers in the UK the choice to make contactless payments on their mobile phone as well as their card. Barclaycard is going to lead the innovation and explosive growth you’ll see in mobile payments. I believe that future generations will find it surprising that early this century we were still carrying separate items to buy goods and to communicate with each other. As payment experts, our role is to make it easier, more convenient and incredibly secure for people to make purchases and manage their money while on the move.”