Barclays roll out new contactless debit cards

Mar 4 2009 by Jon Griffin, Birmingham Post

New state of the art technology is set to make life easier for customers with Barclays Bank.

They will find paying by debit card becomes a little simpler from this week as they start to receive VISA debit cards with new built-in contactless technology.

The bank is the first in the UK to roll out the new technology as a standard feature of most new and replacement debit cards. Up to three million customers are expected to be using contactless debit cards by the end of the year and the majority of Barclays debit card customers will have contactless cards by 2011.

The new cards include contactless technology as an additional feature which allows the card to make transactions of £10 or less by holding it up to a special reader, without the need to enter a PIN or insert the card into a terminal.

The cards will continue to work as normal for chip and PIN transactions, ATM withdrawals and other functions.

Barclays customers will receive their new contactless card as and when their present one needs replacing, for example when it expires, is lost or damaged. New customers signing up to a Barclays current account will also receive the new type of card.

Around 8,000 retailers already accept contactless payments including many outlets of Pret A Manger, Coffee Republic, EAT, Books etc, Krispy Kreme, Threshers and thousands of independent retailers, with more installing the technology every week. For more information on Barclays contactless debit cards go to www.barclays.co.uk/contactless