You think Android Pay, Samsung Pay, and Apple Play will only be the top names competing within the mobile payment arena but a new player wants to get in. It’s not another tech giant but a bank. Yes, a financial institution wants to get in the game. Barclays Bank won’t just leave the technology to the hands of gadget makers so it’s launching its own. It wants to really get into the mobile service just like Android Pay.
This new initiative by Barclays is the first Android contactless payment service. The idea is to compete with the services available in the UK. Called this early as Contactless Mobile, this one will allow any Android phone owner to pay for a transaction without any cash or card. The service will launch next month and will take advantage of the idea of contactless card payments.
In the UK particularly, there are lot of contactless terminals and cards all over the region. Instead of having a bank card, the phone will be enough to finally make a purchase in different establishments as made possible by NFC.
Barclays currently have its own mobile banking app and it plans to add the mobile payment feature. About five million customers use the app so they’re positive that many people will use them. Maybe not all those 5million users but those who own the latest handsets.
Barclays UK CEO Ashok Vaswani said:
“Giving customers the choice about how to make everyday payments while making it really easy for people to use our services is why we’ve designed this contactless payment functionality. It’s all there in one place, ready to go with no need to enter card details, delivering a brilliant experience in an instant.”
Android Pay has yet to spread in the UK. Meanwhile, Apple Pay has been accessible since last year. The introduction of Barclays Contactless Mobile will further make the market competitive. Let’s see once the service launches this coming July.
SOURCE: Barclays
