It was announced today that Barclays is introducing a wristband, a key fob and an NFC sticker under the branding of “bPay” to provide the convenience of contactless payments:
Barclaycard has long supported contactless technology, via its PayTag NFC sticker or bPay bracelet, but the credit card provider recently pulled the products and warned that something new was coming. Indeed, Barclaycard is back with three “new” wearable bPay payment devices: a wristband, fob and sticker.
It seems rather old school at first. The funding mechanism is a prepaid card. The bracelet and fob are just one more thing to remember to carry, plus the sticker seems somehow less secure. What happens when Apple Pay hits the UK market? Would one wear their bPay bracelet on one arm and ApplePay enabled watch on the other? But there are some really interesting elements here too. Barclay retains its brand on all forms of payment, it doesn’t have to play by Apple, Google, Samsung’s or other providers’ parameters, plus the consumer chooses which source to use to load funds onto their bPay device without having to provision more than one payment card onto the chip.
Convenience does come at a cost, however:
All three devices will go on sale via the bPay website from July 1st. It’ll cost £14.99 for the sticker, £19.99 for the fob and £24.99 for the band.
Overview by Sarah Grotta, Director, Debit Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
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