Starbucks Monday announced it is the latest major merchant in the United Kingdom to begin a widespread deployment of contactless terminals in its stores, which follows Marks and Spencer (M&S), the Co-Op and Boots.
Working with Barclaycard Global Payment Acceptance and Visa Europe, Starbucks will make it easy for consumers to pay for their coffees and treats via contactless technology in over 550 stores across the UK. Vice President of Marketing at Starbucks UK, Ian Cranna highlighted the reasons behind the move to make contactless payments one of the primary payment methods at Starbucks stores:
“With only around 1 in 3 of our customers now paying with cash, we recognise the importance and benefits of embracing new payment technologies at Starbucks. We are now able to provide our customers with the quickest and most convenient ways to pay, to speed up service and cut queue times,” said Cranna.
Contactless payments are making headlines recently in the UK and Europe. Last month, Visa Europe predicted that over 50 million contactless payment transactions would take place per month in 2013. M&S also announced in May that it was processing more than 230,000 contactless transactions every week. If the contactless momentum is continued, the payment technology could rival cash for small-ticket transactions in the near future.
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