Barclaycard Brings A Bit Of Glove Love To Contactless Shopping

If you’ve ever struggled with hauling bags of last-minute Christmas shopping in and out of shops, only to spill everything all over the floor while trying to get out your debit card or Oyster, help may soon be at hand thanks to a new concept wearable from Barclaycard.

The company has announced it is trialling prototype gloves that  will allow shoppers to pay for their in-store purchases or travel journey with just a swipe of their hand, meaning there’s no need to set all your bags down to fumble for your wallet or card.

The woollen gloves, which are also touchscreen enabled, contain a bPay contactless chip that can be linked to a credit or debit card and used to pay for transactions of up to £20 just by swiping over a contactless terminal, which should also help reduce in-store queuing times.

One touch

Barclaycard decided to launch the concept following a survey of 2,000 shoppers, which found that ‘gloves you could pay with’ was the most popular wearable item they would like to see created.

Rings and bracelets integrated with the technology came in second and third.

Nearly three quarters (74 percent) of shoppers quizzed by Barclaycard said queuing was their biggest Christmas shopping pet hate, and one in five struggled to pay when their hands are full of bags.

“At some point most of us have experienced the stress of holding bags full of shopping while trying to find a spare hand to get our card out of our purse or wallet to pay,” said Mike Saunders, managing director of digital consumer payments at Barclaycard.

“So when people told us that being able to pay with gloves would take some of the stress out of their Christmas shopping, we wanted to respond positively to shoppers’ demand.”

“The ‘pay gloves’ we’re trialling are designed to let shoppers ‘tap, pay and go’ even when their hands are full of shopping. If the prototype is popular, these handy winter warmers could be bringing some festive cheer to bag-laden shoppers by Christmas 2015”

Barclaycard’s bPay technology has already seen a variety of roll-outs across the country as the bank looks to get more customers interested in contactless payments. In September, the company announced a tie-up with Premiership football team Southampton FC to provide wristbands containing bPay technology for speedy payment at concession stalls around the club’s stadium.

bPay has also been trialled at several festivals this year, and was also approved by TfL to be used as part of the launch of contactless payments across London’s travel network in September.

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