Contactless Payment - opinions?

[hellymedic]

Yebbut you don't have numb figers and a weak grip....

[Cudzoziemiec]

Article here about the future, perhaps, of mobile payment.

Myself, I can see these dongle systems catching on with small retailers who can't afford a standard terminal, as for the customer it's no different to swiping your card in the pos machine, but by the same token they don't offer any advantage to a business already taking cards. Systems which use your phone as a card via NFC offer convenience to hurried commuters in the West while those which operate as a bank account in itself give facility to the hundreds of millions worldwide without access to bank accounts. It's interesting that

M-Pesa has become so much a part of the fabric of Kenyan society that it's now the preferred way to pay bribes to minor state officials such as traffic policemen.

Technology will not squash the black market or bring transparency.

The article mentions

those awful Barclaycard one-touch swipe things you see cluttering up every London coffee bar that promise "convenience" and simultaneously stop your Oyster card from working,

so clearly the technology needs to become fully compatible.

[Notsototalnewbie]

TFL just emailed me to say contactless cards can be used on London buses from tomorrow.

Handy if you run out of Oyster credit and discover it as you try to tap into the bus - no one wants to start fumbling for change in front of an impatient bus driver...

[matthew]

Just be careful when wielding the wallet that you don't swipe both the Oyster reader and the credit card reader!!

[Cudzoziemiec]

Ha! I remember one occasion, about fifteen years ago, when the bus driver had no change. I think the fare was say 90p and I only had a tenner. So he gave me a credit note to be exchanged for cash or bus fares. I knew it was trouble when I came to use it on another occasion and the driver turned his engine off.

[rogerzilla]

I'd like to use this phone as an Oyster card but TfL says NFC is too slow for their turnstiles.

[hellymedic]

'Capping' is not available for fare payment with contactless cards so this might be relatively more costly.

[Notsototalnewbie]

That is true helly, you wouldn't want to do it if you were making more than 2 or 3 journeys in a day. I'd probably use it in an emergency though.

[andygates]

Why not? It's at the discretion of the billing department.

[TimO]

Why not? It's at the discretion of the billing department.

At a guess because they'd have to retain card details, and they may not be allowed to, depending on the agreement with whoever is providing them with that access.

They also probably would still prefer if people used Oyster, because that limits their transfers between debit/credits cards and Oyster to relatively high amounts (£20 minimum I think), whereas transferring cash between cards and their system for every journey would probably mean a cost levied by the credit card issuer for ever journey, which would push their costs up (and indirectly the ticket prices).

[orienteer]

Tfl wants to move off of Oyster eventually as it costs a lot to operate. Capping on bank cards will be introduced in a year or so.

[hellymedic]

Tfl wants to move off of Oyster eventually as it costs a lot to operate. Capping on bank cards will be introduced in a year or so.

That's a shame. I've just told David not to activate the contactless facility on his debit card.
My reasoning is that losing a PAYG Oyster is a relatively trivial inconvenience, whereas losing a debit card is a major PITA. I like to ensure I always have two independent means to get home and really would not want to risk losing a debit card at a ticket gate, where pickpockets, fare-dogers, tailgaters and other ne'erdowells abound.

[rogerzilla]

They also probably would still prefer if people used Oyster, because that limits their transfers between debit/credits cards and Oyster to relatively high amounts (£20 minimum I think)

I topped mine up by a fiver yesterday.

[Jacomus]

Tfl wants to move off of Oyster eventually as it costs a lot to operate. Capping on bank cards will be introduced in a year or so.

That's a shame. I've just told David not to activate the contactless facility on his debit card.
My reasoning is that losing a PAYG Oyster is a relatively trivial inconvenience, whereas losing a debit card is a major PITA. I like to ensure I always have two independent means to get home and really would not want to risk losing a debit card at a ticket gate, where pickpockets, fare-dogers, tailgaters and other ne'erdowells abound.

THIS.

I keep my Oyster and my wallet separate, for the simple reason that I want to minimise the amount of time my wallet spends out of my pocket.

[hellymedic]

£20 on an Oyster still seems like small beer compared to what could happen if my debit or credit cards fell into the wrong hands.
YMMV