London Gets Ready For Contactless Payments

The Inquirier's Chip Mulligan reports on plans to deploy contactless card technologies in the UK, beginning in London in September 2007 with the deployment of 4,000 new contactless/chip and PIN-capable POS readers to merchants and the issuance of over a half a million cards. In the UK, contactless payments will be limited to payments less than £10 (vs. $25 in the US) and the cards themselves will include "built-in counters that will only allow a certain number of contactless payments to be made before a PIN must be entered." According to Mulligan, "APACS expect that by 2011, 70% of debit cards and 45% of credit cards will have been converted to support contactless payments."