Barclaycard expands contactless payments for fashion wearables

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Feb 28, 2017

Barclaycard’s bPay has struck two new deals that means consumers will be able to pay for goods with payment tech embedded in high street jewellery and watch brands.

It is linking up with DCK, a global jewellery specialist that operates high street store concessions, and payments specialist Tappy Technologies Limited. Full details and product line-ups will be released soon.

The appeal of its DCK agreement is clear as the firm is a major force in high street retail and currently makes the Freedom, Diva and Daisy & Eve ranges that are sold in Arcadia stores, as well as many other lines. The bPay deal is for DCK’s Tutch line.

“DCK is behind the concession jewellery offered by some of the UK’s leading high street retailers and the partnership will see bPay contactless payment technology embedded into some of the most exciting and on-trend jewellery styles on the high street,” Barclaycard said.

Meanwhile, Tappy Technologies Limited is a company that embeds payment functionality into watches. This means traditional watch designs can become contactless payment devices rather than consumers having to commit to a deep dive into the smartwatch market.

The aim is to introduce Barclaycard’s Visa services to a large number of fashion brands via Tappy and its founder Wayne leung said the deal will open new horizons for its open source technology and for the traditional watch and jewellery industry.

At the moment, bPay markets its own payment devices, including a wristband, fob, sticker and loop, and these will continue.

They first launched in 2015 and Barclaycard said that it has so far processed 1.1m transactions worth £6.6m using these bPay wearable devices.