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Confidence restored: I’m back on the wagon thanks to Pret #GemaltoNFC

I had a bit of an NFC wobble last night. The problems at Marks & Spencer and then again at WH Smiths in Waterloo really took quite a toll on my confidence in the technology. I was nigh on utterly despondent last night. It was so depressing having to bring out my credit card to pay when I knew my phone was perfectly capable of doing so. I hope someone from Gemalto or perhaps some of their partners can shed some light as to why some terminals are posing problems for me.

Today I resolved to take another shot at the full-day contactless challenge — that is, breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks all purchased via contactless. I had breakfast — or, brunch really — via Pret and I’m just about to pop to McDonalds. (I know I know I know, it’s all in the aid of the challenge, ok???? IT WAS A SALAD, A SALAD!)

Then later on I am planning on hitting up Subway in Ascot this evening. Although I ought to go and ‘have a snack’ as well. Maybe I’ll pop by Pret again.

Anyway, I wanted to bring you bang up to date. Here I am discussing getting back on the wagon thanks to Pret this morning:

And after walking into Pret I was delighted to see the transaction process without a hitch. Boom! I was back to joy. It really is brilliant tapping your phone, grabbing your sandwich and walking away. I love it:

4 COMMENTS

  1. Ewan:
    Watched your McDonalds video and had to smile. Your comment about “not needing money” (cash) was the same thing that we discovered when our team launched multi bank debit cards (Interlink) back in the ’80s. Watching grocery store charges via debit card, the banks, and the grocery stores noticed that average purchase amount Monday through Friday between 5 PM and 8 PM almost tripled. People who needed to stop and purchase one or two items for dinner (and could use cash for just those purchases) purchased more because they did not need cash.

  2. If we’re going to drive contactless adoption, the terminal infrastructure needs to be installed correctly and uptime monitored. I use contactless whenever it is offered, but I’m finding that I can only put 1 transaction in 2 through as the terminals are often out of order. For a lot of people, they might try to use it once, find the terminal doesn’t work and then not bother trying it again.

  3. Yo, Ewan. Enjoying your adventures. It’s like Anneka Rice never left TV. But if anything your arse is even peachier. Now, I need to ask you something. So contact me!

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