Barclaycard Business and Computer Cab plc have announced the unveiling of the first taxi contactless payments system, at the Business Travel Show held in Earl’s Court last month.

This interesting partnership sees Barclaycard and ComCab team up to fit a ‘concept cab’ with Visa ‘wave and pay’ technology in order to demonstrate how the taxi company could offer customers a secure and efficient way to pay for low value (less than £10) taxi fares.

These new developments from Barclaycard follow the announcement last year that Barclays would be combining chip-and-pin technology for credit card payments alongside that of the Oyster Card. This card, now fully rolled out, also allows customers to pay for low-cost items in shops without having to enter a pin number.

The innovations made by Visa’s ‘wave and pay’ system could change the lives of millions of people who would like to avoid the accumulation of loose change in their pockets. The system, currently being tested by Barclays and competing banks in a range of formats, requires customers to pass a credit card in front of an electronic reader in order to make small payments.

Barclaycard have released a new card combining the functionality of a London Oyster card, a contactless payment system and a standard credit card.

Oyster

Sold as ‘OnePulse’, the card is being marketed heavily at Londonders due to the inclusion of a pre-pay Oyster card which can be used on the London Underground and bus network. Barclays have secured the exclusive rights for three years, to put Oyster cards on its Barclaycard credit cards and Barclays Connect debit cards.

Cashless

The other novel feature of the card is the ability to make purchases for less than £10 with out entering a PIN, simply waving it past a reader in a similar fashion to normal Oyster cards. To discourage fraud one in five such transactions will still require entering a PIN number in the normal fashion as will any purchase over £10. Currently participating merchants include off-licence chain Threshers and donut vendors Krispy Kreme. According to Barclaycard you can use ‘OneTouch’ wherever you see the wave symbol or ‘Visa payWave’ sign.

Credit

Finally as one would expect from Barclaycard the OnePulse card is also a credit card with a fairly competitive APR of 14.9% Typical and 6 months 0% interest on purchases from account opening. More information can be found at Barclaycard.