The good folks at PSCU were handing out samples of Mastercard’s PayPass card at a conference in April. Not one to pass up $25 free dollars, I took one with the promise to try it out. That was Friday, April 18.
As I understand it, contactless technology uses RFID rather than the traditional magnetic stripe to share your payment information. While slightly faster than the traditional card slide, the real benefit comes because you don’t have to sign anything. As illustrated by the Visa graphic below, you tap … and go.
I wanted to try it out, I really did. I carried that PayPass card in my money clip and kept my eyes peeled for a place to tap. I remembered hearing something about 7-Eleven supporting the card, so I stopped there with visions of whisking through, albeit for half a tank. No luck: I used my regular card. I stopped into Target, which I consider a tech-forward retailer. No dice: plain-old mag-stripe. And if the 7-Eleven gas pump and Target couldn’t provide, you can bet I wasn’t tapping at the local Kuhn’s grocery store.
The first time I found a chance to tap my card was at an airport McDonald’s … on May 8. That’s almost three weeks after the newfangled card landed in my clip. And that’s where the story changes. After ordering my usual fare of apple pies and a milk shake, I tapped just once. I heard a pleasant beep, waited about four seconds, then received the food and a receipt from the cahsier. No signature, no hassle. I did the same thing with two Slurpees on May 24 (apparently the tap-and-go equipment is inside the 7-Elevens). It was easy; I was pleased.
I can imagine Minnie Merchant and Izzie Card Issuer having this exchange ad infinitum:
ICI: I’m not going to start pushing contactless cards until my customers can actually use them.MM: I’m not going to put in the equipment until your folks are carrying the cards.That’s the problem. For me personally contactless is very nice, but not game changing. I’m not going to go out of my way to carry RFID when I still have to go out of my way to use it.
So I’m with Izzie on this one. Until I can tap for a Root Beer at a vending machine, for my fare at the parking meter, or at a gas pump next to my car, I’m sticking with the boring and universal mag stripe.
Comments
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This is very cool technology and your chicken and egg analogy is right on the money. The speed of advancement always seems to hampered by infrastructure and the rate of adoption.
Thanks also for giving us a window into your very healthy diet (I’m no better)!
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As cool as the technology sounds and works, like you mentioned, its not going to hit critical mass for quite some time. For the most part, I think a lot of the mainstream would-be users for this product are still trying to get a firm handle on their debit card, let alone a card that let’s them ‘tap and go’.
However, for the younger crowd that is more likely to become early adopters of technology, this could be something that gives a CU or FI an edge in the market when the infrastructure finally makes it into place.
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This reminds me a bit of the state of the fax machine many years ago. If you thought about buying one, you had to decide if enough of your business contacts had one so you could send them a fax. Of course, they were waiting for the same thing. Sales of fax machines in the US hovered below 200,000 per year for many years, and then it hit the tipping point. Suddenly, sales of fax machines were over 1 Million per year for several years in a row. So, how do you know when a tipping point is about to occur? And more importantly, what do you gain or lose by being in front or behind the tipping point?
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