Barclays will be adding the ability for its users to “tap and pay” with their Android phones, potentially allowing its bank users to pay at 400,000 different locations as well as the London Underground Tube.
Tap and Pay technology enables shoppers to be able pay at store checkout counters or for public transportation by waving their Android smartphones in front of a wireless reader. Shoppers can upload their credit and debit card information to the mobile app to pay instead of using cash or taking credit cards from their wallets. Barclays says the technology will be added to its mobile app in June.
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For transactions over £30, users will need to tap the phone at the terminal, enter their debit card PIN number, and then tap the phone again.
Barclays will face competition from Google’s Android Pay, which is expected to roll out across the United Kingdom imminently. But Android Pay currently doesn’t count Barclays as one of its partners. Currently consumers who use Bank of Scotland, First Direct, Halifax, HSBC, and Lloyds Bank will be able to use Android Pay.
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Barclays already partners with Apple to let its iPhone customers use their Barclays accounts to pay with Apple’s tap and pay technology, Apple Pay.
The U.K. Could be a major market for contactless payments. According to reports, 54.2% of mobile phones sold in the country during the first quarter of 2015 were Android devices. Adoption of payments using smartphones has been noticeably more popular in the U.K. Than the United States.
Last year, British shoppers made nearly one billion so-called “contactless” purchases in stores and elsewhere, including on the London Underground.
