Contactless payments arrive on Coronation Street

Visa Europe has signed a six-figure product placement deal with British television network ITV that will see contactless payments get high profile outings on prime-time soaps Coronation Street and Emmerdale.

  12 14 comments

Contactless payments arrive on Coronation Street

Editorial

This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community.

The ninth month deal will see contactless payments terminals arrive at Dev’s shop and Nick’s Bistro in Coronation Street, and in David’s shop and Café Main Street in Emmerdale.

Kevin Jenkins, MD, UK and Ireland, Visa Europe, told Campaign: "Shops like Dev’s in Corrie and David’s in Emmerdale are exactly the type well-suited to contactless - high numbers of small transactions."

Contactless payments have become mainstream over the last year. Visa says that a fifth of the 500 million cards it now has in circulation in Europe let users wave and pay. The phrase even made Oxford Dictionaries' shortlist for international word of the year in 2014.

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Comments: (14)

A Finextra member 

It's Eastenders they should be focusing on. Lots of cash in the east end! gertcha. Can you imagine the woolpack accepting contactless.. and as for corry.. most of the bar staff love a bit of contact..

Richard Sanders

Richard Sanders Payments Specialist at Hermosa Consulting

I am not sure the characters of these soaps are actually the types of customers banks want e.g. The Dingles in Emmerdale so it will be interesting to see how much extra business arrives from this sponsorship

A Finextra member 

Why don't they just make a sensible advert?  KISS

Dave Sanderson

Dave Sanderson Banking Services Consultant at YBS Group

Agreed with the previous poster, a simple and informative advertising campaign would seem a better fit. I don't watch soaps (honest) but I can't imagine that the use of credit & debit cards to pay for things is particually prevalent within a storyline. 

Lu Zurawski

Lu Zurawski founder, iKnowMe at Lu Zurawski

It just occured to me - I cannot remember a fictional representation of a retail electronic payment appearing on TV/film anywhere. Can anyone think of one? Will this be a first for consumer payments?

Richard Sanders

Richard Sanders Payments Specialist at Hermosa Consulting

How about Arkwrights till drawer that bites his hand on 'open All Hours'' Lu. An advert against cash if ever there was one

Lu Zurawski

Lu Zurawski founder, iKnowMe at Lu Zurawski

Sorry Richard - I'm pretty sure Arkwright's was a cash only, manual register.

 

Richard Sanders

Richard Sanders Payments Specialist at Hermosa Consulting

Still funny though - it was payments related. In Yorkshire cash is still king

Andrew Churchill

Andrew Churchill ID & Authentication Standards author at MIDAS Alliance

Plenty of card fraud in movies - Mel Gibson's stolen cards in Payback, the young O'Connor's ATM attack in Terminator 2 etcetera.

Choice of programmes unfortunate though - I'd have preferred to see a London based soap/drama so they could go on about card-clash!

Btw Richard, trust you to associate with Arkwright! :)

Richard Sanders

Richard Sanders Payments Specialist at Hermosa Consulting

Thanks Andrew - a genius comic creation by Ronnie Barker. So thanks for saying I, too am a genius

A Finextra member 

They won't be making any new ads. The CMO and his number two and three "left" Visa. What will Usan Bolt do now?

Lu Zurawski

Lu Zurawski founder, iKnowMe at Lu Zurawski

Richard & Andrew - it was too hard to resist: 

https://www.finextra.com/blogs/fullblog.aspx?blogid=10505

A Finextra member 

This is a great opportunity to bring the NFC concepts to the masses in a way that ads, documentaries and newspapers will never achieve.

Just seeing the use of NFC cards and phones on TV in normal situations will both educate and stimulate a market - encourgaing people that next time they renew their contract they should look at nfc enabled smartphone. Some of us have gone down that route already to replace the Oyster Cards, but e-wallets are still finding their place in the pantheon of "killer apps"

A Finextra member 

Lu, not sure if it specifically falls into the retail category, but Dr Haywood Floyd pays for a video call to his daughter from the space station back to earth by inserting his Amex card into the phone.  Apparently, Amex had originally submitted a payment ring for the purpose, but it was not used, I guess contactless payments in 1968 were a bit futuristic.

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