Pret A Manger introduces revolutionary contactless payment system

Pret A Manger go contactless

Barclaycard and Commidea Ltd have announced that Pret A Manger, the high-street food chain, is to offer contactless payment facilities to its customers. The launch of the integrated system follows a successful pilot in seven Pret A Manger shops across London, and will be rolled out to the remaining 171 UK Pret stores over the next six months, to become one of the largest contactless integrations undertaken by a retailer.

The phased rollout, which will complete in April 2009, will see contactless introduced to Pret stores in a range of towns and cities across the UK including; London, Manchester, York, Brighton, Birmingham, Oxford, Cambridge and Southampton. These stores join Barclaycard’s contactless network, with more than 6,000 outlets accepting contactless payments throughout the UK.

The contactless solution developed by Commidea will reduce queuing times for consumers. Contactless payments allow customers to purchase items of £10 and under without the need to enter their PIN or sign or wait long periods at the point of sale. The customer is simply required to wave their contactless card in front of the Barclaycard terminal, making the system quick and effective.

In the last three months, Barclaycard has added the technology to more of its card products. All newly issued Barclaycard Platinum cards now include contactless technology and over one million contactless cards have already been issued.

Simon Hargraves, Director of Food and Communications at Pret A Manger comments: “At Pret, we pride ourselves on amazing food, passionate people and incredible customer service.  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”.

Source: Retail Technology