Barclaycard and Orange partner on mobile payments

Barclaycard has announced a partnership with mobile operator Orange in which the two will allow customers to use their mobile phones to pay for goods using near-field communication (NFC).

The service, called Quick Tap, allows customers to make purchases of £15 or less throughout the UK by tapping their mobile handset against a contactless reader.

It works as a top-up service. Users can top-up up to £100. People using the service can top up with a Barclays credit or debit card or with Orange credit cards.

The service uses the same transaction technology as existing NFC contactless payments – the same standard, protocols and specifications that are already used in over 50,000 stores in the UK, at places such as Pret A Manger, McDonald's, EAT and Subway.

The first handset to support the technology is the Samsung Tocco.

The service is launched at a time when more than one in 10 people are using their mobiles to make payments, according to research firm TNS.

In the UK 11.9 per cent of consumers now use their mobiles to make payments online. In addition, one in five UK consumers use their mobile to perform basic banking functions, such as checking their account balance – up more than 100 per cent on last year.

Tom Gregory, head of digital payments at Barclaycard told Computing that the decision to kick off this scheme with Orange was a natural choice.

"Both teams [Orange and Barclaycard] shared the same vision and had the same objectives in terms of what we wanted to achieve and, going forward, how to build on this."

In terms of security, Gregory said users can be confident that, even if their phone is stolen, they will not lose the money on the account.

Barclaycard will offer a 100 per cent fraud guarantee to all users, and in incidents of fraud, the amount stolen will be reimbursed to the user.

There is a PIN control on the Samsung Tocco and users need to enter a PIN in order to top up their account.

"We decided not to provide a direct link from users' mobile phones to their bank accounts because through our market research and focus groups we found that customers were nervous about having a direct link from their account to their phone," said Gregory.

He added that the deal with Orange on the Tocco handset is just the starting point, and that all big handset manufacturers are talking about using NFC payments.

"Orange is in discussions with other handset vendors, but we can't reveal when the next ones will come along – but you can expect more to follow," said Gregory.