Cash as legal tender has been around for almost 300 years. And whilst a great deal has changed in how we buy and sell, cash has been stalwart throughout the ages, only recently beginning to see challenges from cards and now mobile payment options.
Google’s announcement that Android Pay will be coming to the UK in a few months is a hugely significant moment in the mobile payments story – one that marks a nail in the coffin for card transactions at the point of sale.
It goes without saying that no SME owner goes into business fuelled by their love for payment technology. However, no payments equals no business.
Even before Apple’s entry into the market, the electronic payments sector has been changing rapidly with new devices and technologies entering the market more frequently than ever.
The trend of contactless payments is set to spike significantly as the limit per transaction increased to £30 on 1 September, which follows British consumers spending £2.5bn with the method in the first half of 2015.
Little, if anything, was said about how Apple Pay would impact smaller independent retailers upon its UK arrival – nor how firms might use the technology to drive growth. While there is an opportunity to scale and capture the increase in mobile shopping, it doesn’t lie completely in the Apple basket.
With the arrival of Samsung Pay to complement/battle Apple Pay – and with Android Pay bringing up the rear in a few months – going cashless just got a lot easier and ever more secure.
Apple Pay has launched in the UK, enabling iPhone 6 and Apple Watch-wielding Brits to pay for goods with a tap of their device. It can also be used on the London Underground, but TfL has warned users to think twice if their batteries are low, threatening fines.
A Series A investment worth £7m has been closed by technology business Flyway, which has developed a service aimed at the hospitality industry.
If the UK's retailers embed mobile strategies like Apple Pay into tangible locations, it could be the key to injecting £7.8bn into Britain's high street in 2015, according to RetailMeNot.
After being announced earlier in summer, Apple Pay, the new mobile payments channel from Apple, has officially launched in the UK. As the face of British retail looks set to change forever, business execs from across the country, and those with overseas experience, have offered Real Business their thoughts, some good and some bad, on the arrival of the new technology.
European users of Visa cards have collectively made 1.1 billion contactless payments in the past year, generating a spend of €12.6bn.
