Barclaycard has taken an innovative approach to the wearable payments market with the trial of 'tap and pay' woollen gloves that allow people to pay contactlessly for their Christmas shopping.
Barclaycard has developed a small number of ‘pay-glove’ prototypes which are being trialled across some of the UK’s 300,000 contactless locations during the busy Christmas shopping period.
In a survey by Barclaycard, which quizzed 2000 people on their Christmas shopping behaviour, “gloves you could pay with” were voted the most popular wearable item consumers would like to see created, followed by rings in second place and bracelets in third.
The innovative knitwear is touchscreen-enabled and embedded with a bPay contactless chip that can be linked to a credit or debit card and used to pay for transactions of up to £20.
Mike Saunders, managing director of Digital Consumer Payments at Barclaycard says: “The ‘pay gloves’ we’re trialling are designed to let shoppers ‘tap, pay and go’ even when their hands are full of shopping. If the prototype is popular, these handy winter warmers could be bringing some festive cheer to bag-laden shoppers by Christmas 2015.”