PayTag

 

 

Barclaycard has unveiled a stick-on credit card called PayTag, which will sit on the back of a mobile phone (or any other item you carry everywhere) and then be used to make small, contact-free payments.

The tiny sticker, which is about a third of the size of a traditional credit card, uses near-field-communication technology to transfer cash from your bank account to a contactless payment terminal. You just wave your device over the terminal, and you don't need to enter your PIN.

The idea is to open mobile payments to Barclaycard's 12 million customers, even if their mobile phone is not equipped with an NFC chip, or not set up for contactless transactions. Or even if they don't have a phone at all -- the sticker works on anything.

Right now, the sticker can be used to make payments of £15 and under, and it will rise to £20 in June 2012. That means it's suited for buying lunch, coffee, magazines and other bits and bobs. As such, retailers like Pret a Manger, McDonald's, Boots, WH Smith and Tesco are among the first to offer contactless payments.

Barclaycard's PayTag will launch in May, when a select group of its credit card customers will receive a sticker in the post. Later this year, all customers will be offered the free upgrade.

PayPal attacks Square & iZettle

More Than 200K Merchants Have Signed Up For PayPal Here

      

During eBay’s earnings call today, eBay CEO and President John Donahoe said that over 200,000 merchants have signed up for PayPal Here, the company’s Square-like mobile payments hardware and software platform for small businesses. We haven’t seen any sign-up numbers for the mobile payments service since PayPal revealed it was seeing 1,000 new registrants per hour for the new service.

As you may have heard, PayPal Here offers a triangular add-on that plugs into the headphone jack on your smartphone. Merchants can then accept payments by swiping cards with the thumb-sized card reader or can use the smartphone’s camera to scan credit cards (powered by Card.io), scan checks, etc. PayPal Here offers a flat rate of 2.7 percent for card swipes.

Donahoe says the reader will launch to the public in the second quarter, and will be available in the US, Canada, Hong Kong and Australia at launch. He adds that he’s not sure they can manufacture enough PayPal Here devices to keep up for demand.

For basis of comparison, over 1 million merchants currently use Square to accept credit cards (which is a data point that was released in December, so this number could be higher).
Donahoe also said during the call that eBay would be improving the marketplace checkout experience, search and discovery on the platform. With regard to NFC, Donahoe says that it will be at least a couple of years before you see adoption of NFC at large retailers.