Contactless payments – the standard everywhere else in Europe – have finally arrived in Ireland. Pharmacy chain Boots has launched a contactless payments platform in conjunction with Visa and Streamline.
Shoppers will be able to buy goods fewer than €15 by just touching their card off the the POS terminal without having to enter a PIN.
This should help reduce wait times at shop counters. Visa Europe recently reported Irish customers spend 11.2m minutes queueing daily to pay for low-value purchases.
“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,” explained Debbie Smith, managing director of Boots Ireland.
“The new technology should help to reduce transaction and queueing times.”
Contactless payments in Ireland
Contactless payment cards are just beginning to emerge in Ireland. According to a Visa Europe spokesman, Bank of Ireland’s Visa Debit card is capable of contactless payments and AIB has started to switch from Laser to Visa Debit cards enabled with contactless technology.
In recent months, we reported that Irish retail company BWG Foods and its technology partner CBE are rolling out terminals to enable customers to make contactless payments in Spar, Eurospar and Mace stores across Ireland, starting with branches in Dublin, Mayo and Clare.
“Contactless payments make in-store payments faster and easier for consumers and retailers and today’s announcement is another step towards making this new technology a high-street reality,” Visa Europe vice-president for Ireland Conor Langford said.
Contactless payments image via Shutterstock
