Boots contactless payments rollout 'to go nationwide'

Visa Europe and Streamline to allow contactless payments of under £20 across more stores

Boots, in partnership with Visa Europe and merchant card processing provider Streamline, is to continue its rollout of contactless payments across the UK.

This follows a successful launch in over 600 of its largest stores, including many of its London branches. All Boots stores in the Republic of Ireland also offer this method of payment.

A Visa Europe spokesman told Computing that the rollout would continue and eventually cover all 2,500 Boots stores. However, he could not give a completion date, or reveal how many stores the latest phase would include.

Boots has not yet responded to Computing's request for more information.

The technology allows users to pay for shopping worth less than £20 by tapping the reader with their contactless enabled card.

Jonathan Vardon, IT director at Boots, said he was pleased that the rollout was making good progress.

"Our aim is to offer customers a great shopping experience with quick, easy ways to pay and we believe that contactless payment is one way to deliver this as the technology has helped to reduce transaction and queuing times," he said.

"We know that our customers want us to offer an unrivalled choice of services and products and we hope they will enjoy the benefits of using contactless technology in our store," he added.

Mark Austin, head of contactless at Visa Europe, said that 2012 was a "tipping point" for contactless transactions in the UK, which increased throughout the year to average more than 2.5 million a month.

"We're predicting that transactions will grow fourfold over the course of 2013, thanks to the rollout in retailers like Boots UK, Marks & Spencer and McDonald's, as well as all of London's buses," he said.