Discounter Lidl has become the latest UK retailer to introduce contactless payments, with the NFC technology recently rolled out in all of its 600 UK stores, following a successful pilot trial in February.
The retailer worked with payment solutions company WorldPay to install the technology in all stores by the end of July. According to Lidl, within the first two weeks of August alone, 65,628 contactless transactions had taken place in stores across the country.
“We decided to implement contactless in order to speed up payments and reduce queuing time,” says Lidl Spokesperson Georgina O’Donnell.
"We were also responding to consumer demand to move with the times and offer a wider range of payment acceptance options. Installing the technology across so many stores was a significant project, but WorldPay helped to make it a smooth process. It’s still early days, but just two weeks on from launch we’ve processed over 65,000 transactions and customer reaction has been very positive.”
Ron Kalifa, Deputy Chairman of WorldPay added, “We recently undertook a major research project which found that one in ten consumers have already used contactless technology, and 60% recognise the contactless symbol. We expect this number to continue to rise because, of those who have used it, 93% of users find contactless quick and efficient. It’s important that businesses consider how consumer demand for new payment technologies is growing and choose to invest at the most optimum time to secure a return. The fact that Lidl has already seen such high levels of use is testament to the fact that consumer behaviours are changing as awareness of contactless payments grows.”
“With contactless spend in the UK growing five fold in the last twelve months, Lidl’s roll out of the payment technology is great news for Visa cardholders. We’re delighted to see monthly contactless spend increase to £45.2 million in June 2012 as consumers become increasingly confident with making every day contactless payments," Mark Austin, head of contactless payments at Visa Europe said.
© 2013 - ESM: European Supermarket Magazine by Ellen Lunney
