UK retailer Pret a Manger was one of the country’s first retailers to bet on NFC. Despite believing in the technology early on, it was only in the past 12 months that contactless payments really started to take off.
“Contactless payments in terms of our overall transactions have gone from single digits of probably between three to five per cent, to about 20 per cent in the last 12 months,” said Andy Chalklin, the company’s director of IT, delivery and support, in an interview with Computing.
Chalklin is an advocate of NFC as he defends it can benefit both customers and businesses. “As a retailer it is faster, it is a guaranteed payment methodology; it is not subject to charge-back from the acquirer, it is accessible as people forget their wallets at home but not their phones. And, from a retailing perspective, it is cheaper at the moment; it is 50 per cent of the interchange rate of any chip-and-pin transaction,” he said.
The company is only just reaping the benefits of adopting NFC but is already preparing to adopt other payment technologies. Chalklin says the company wants to roll out mobile payment options and be ready when new technologies and methods emerge. “So we’re trying to make sure we can accept payments through multiple channels in order to not restrict ourselves. If Apple comes out with NFC technology in the next iPhone it is going to be difficult for every retailer, but we want to make sure we are in the front of the pack with everybody else,” he said.
If you want to read the full interview, click here.
