Barclaycard and RBS start mobile phone payments

Barclaycard is starting a public trial of contactless payment using a mobile phone.

Five hundred customers in London will be given Nokia mobile phones with an inbuilt Oyster card and contactless payments card.

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is also trialling phone payment at its Edinburgh headquarters – where it piloted its original contactless payment system.

Earlier this year Barclaycard launched its OnePulse card – allowing customers to pay for low value goods such as coffees or newspapers by waving their card over a reader without giving a PIN number.

The new Barclays mobile phones – issued in partnership with O2 – will bring all the functions of the OnePulse card and put it on a phone.

"Barclaycard has a long history of innovation and again we're at the forefront of trialling new technology which will help us play a leading role in shaping the future of payments," said Colin Swain, Barclaycard's head of research and development.

"We continually investigate new ways of making our customers' lives easier and giving them choice, and we are excited by the many opportunities mobile devices could bring."

In the UK, the roll-out of contactless payment using Near Field Communication (NFC) technology – with Visa's payWave and Maestro's PayPass – has started in London and will be extended across the country in the coming year.

A recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts one in ten Brits will use the cards by the end of 2008.

In the US, Visa trials of NFC technology have allowed consumers not just to pay for goods in shops, but also from smart posters – so tickets to concerts or films can be bought from posters and the phone can be used as the ticket.

"Mobile phones are playing an increasingly important role in our day to day lives. According to official figures, 80 per cent of UK adults own at least one mobile," said Paul Geddes, RBS chief executive of consumer banking.

"As we constantly look for ways to improve customer convenience, we therefore believe that mobile phones will be the next step in the payments evolution."

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