Pret to roll out contactless payments

Pret A Manger has become the latest retailer to offer contactless payment facilities to its customers.

The High Street sandwich shop chain announced plans today to roll out integrated contactless electronic point-of-sale (EPOS) systems and hardware to 171 UK stores following a successful pilot in seven London locations.

The deployment is scheduled for completion in April 2009 and will be one of the largest contactless integrations undertaken by a retailer, enabling contactless card-holding customers to purchase items of 10 and under without the need to enter their PIN.

The retailer will use contactless systems developed by card payment processing systems provider, Commidea along with contactless payment terminals from Barclaycard.

Simon Hargraves, Pret A Manger director of food and communications, said: "Speed is incredibly important to us and by working with Barclaycard and Commidea we're able to install an efficient contactless system to give our customers a quicker method of payment and an improved customer experience.

"The new system has been received well so far and we have committed to rolling out contactless across our entire network of UK shops during 2009."

Pret joins a number of high-traffic, low-value transaction retailers that have taken on the contactless technology since its launch over a year ago. High Street names including EAT, Yo! Sushi and Coffee Republic now offer the payment method, while the likes of McDonalds, RBS and London Oyster card-using commuters have trialled it.

Barclaycard said over one million contactless cards have already been issued, including the Barclaycard OnePulse, the three-in-one Oyster contactless and Chip and PIN card and the cards recently issued to Goldfish and Morgan Stanley customers.