moneysupermarket: Barclaycard mobile phone payment trial

Commenting on the Barclaycard’s forthcoming trial of mobile phone payments for purchases of £10 or less, Rob Kenley, head of credit cards at price comparison website moneysupermarket.com, said: “Much has been made of consumer concerns around security surrounding the new breed of contactless payments and any initiative that helps allay these concerns is a welcome one. Using a mobile phone can provide consumers with more control because they can activate or deactivate the contactless chip using the handset in the same way as Bluetooth and this function could be PIN protected. The ability to switch off a contactless chip would provide customers with more confidence to adopt and use contactless payments, something that the current style of contactless cards is missing. Ideally they should also be able to see the balance of their oyster card on the handset screen so we hope there will be more developments of this sort.”