No time for change - Contactless Smartcards have Arrived

A payment revolution

The first viable alternative to small change

A tiny chip is set to replace a fistful of coins and notes for many everyday low-value payment transactions. Demand for the latest generation of contactless payment solutions is likely to be driven by consumers and retailers. Widespread consumer adoption will not just depend on maximising ease of use; creating contagion requires ubiquitous merchant take-up and a profitable business model.

Industry commentators, technology companies and banks have been talking up the possibility of universally accepted ‘e-purse’ systems for small transactions for almost two decades now. So far the reality has never lived up to the hype.

Advances in smart card technology and falling unit costs mean that the technical barriers have all but disappeared. Consumers are much more attuned to the idea that a tiny chip incorporated on a card, or within another everyday device such as a phone, could be used to store money: allowing them to pay