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Gemalto NFC Contactless Challenge Day Eight

After a week of almost using contactless exclusively as part of the #GemaltoNFC Contactless Challenge, I am comfortably leading Ewan 194-152. Ewan has jetted off to Barcelona, where he will be testing GSMAs favourite mobile citys NFC infrastructure. As for me, I am continuing my quest to uncover more shops that features contactless. Despite leading Ewan, I know he isnt one to give up easily. So do hit me up with more contactless challenges!

Monday was a fairly quiet affair as far as contactless went. Boots was my first port of call where I collected a bunch of photographs and developed film negatives (yes we still use those!). The pictures turned out okay (expired film, plastic lens and all), but it was the reaction of the cashier which was priceless. "I am an old lady, you wont see me ever using those! I am happy I could send texts and make phone calls!" was the reply when I implied NFC was the future!

Stopping at Marks & Spencers to grab dinner only revealed that the machines has decided to fail once again! These were the same self service terminals that threw up a hissy fit on Thursday before working again on Saturday. No matter what I did, how I tapped  and prodded the terminal, the machine would simply not accept payment and complained about the existence of two devices, before forcing my QuickTap app to exit.
Giving up, I headed to Slug & Lettuce instead where the half price Monday deal ensured the bill came in well below the £20 limit. It was the first time the bartender has seen a phone being used to pay, though like her colleague on Saturday, she has seen plenty of contactless cards used at the bar. Bartenders certainly appreciate any amount of time saved processing payments, even in seconds, that contactless brings in comparison to traditional chip and pin.

As we enter the final half week of this experiment, I have learned a few things about this new payment technology. While I am convinced by contactless payment, ditch your wallet would be premature. Contactless has a long way to go, even in built-up areas of London. Reliability is perhaps a bigger issue here. I have encountered more failures in my one week using contactless than an entire decade of using chip and pin, and can easily impact the publics perception of the technology.

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Gemalto NFC Contactless Challenge Day Two Surviving an Entire Day on Contactless

I woke up to day two of the Gemalto Contactless Challenge, confident enough to start taking names. Okay, not really, but I was much more prepared than yesterday. Today my main task is to go the entire day only on contactless, meaning I will only be relying on the Gemalto issued Samsung Galaxy S3 for my breakfast, lunch, snacks, dinner and whatever else I require. Ewan was ahead and points were at stake. No more screw ups - I just have to get it right today!

Well no. The morning started with my quest to send Gemalto a postcard. I visited the Post Office on Farringdon Road and I immediately recognise the NFC card readers they have installed on the counters. Unfortunately for me and Gemalto, it appears that the postcards on display (and in fact every physical items sold in the store), can only be paid at the shop counter which is managed separately from the Post Office. This counter would only accept chip & pin, with a minimum of £5 spend. And the other Post Office in nearby Moorgate does not even sell postcards! Who would have thought sending a postcard in London would be so challenging? (In hindsight I was perhaps foolish for believing postcards would be widely available in none-touristy areas)

Irritated and hungry, I figured I could do with breakfast now, so I decided to pay my favourite coffee shops in Holborn a visit. The first was the delightfully name Department of Coffee & Social Affairs, part of the Coffeesmith chain of specialty coffee. Approaching as a researcher again, I asked if they accept contactless. Despite the modern looking PDQ the barista was adamant they do not accept contactless payment.

Coffeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

Defeated once again I headed to Prufrock Coffee. The counter happened to be manned by World Barista Champion Gwilym Davies, who happens to be a London coffee hero to me (and many others). They acknowledged that they do accept contactless payments via cards, but not phones as they believed they required a different hardware to accept payments via phones. Still, I insisted on at least trying to pay via my phone and it worked!

I explained to Gwilym, who initially believed it to be something like "sticking your Oystercard to your phone", the benefits of having it on your phone rather than using a bog standard credit card in that it actually displays a confirmation screen on your phone. Gwilym thought that contactless payment technology is amazing, as traditional chip & pin is too slow for a coffee shop. As I have sip my coffee and compose a draft of this post, I wonder how many shops I have been who claimed they werent able accept payment from my phone when they could!

In the time between brunch and my very late lunch at EAT on Lower Regent Street, I took the chance to visit the Museum of London. I have written a dedicated blog post detailing how the museum has integrated NFC technology with their exhibitions. During the rest of the day I also visited the Marks & Spencer: Simply Food store in Liverpool Street Railway Station to grab dinner and Pret A Manger outside the Museum of London for some snacks.

Oh, and I finally managed to locate a Post Office which sells postcards!

You cant see me but I was doing the happy bunny dance outside of this shot

Apart from buying lunch at EAT, where the payment till encountered a user error, the entire process of paying with contactless was painless and quick. It took roughly 10-20 seconds from tapping the terminals to being handed a receipt. The most user friendly contactless terminals are those installed at large chains like Pret A Manger, where they have dedicated and visible NFC terminals. Smaller independent merchants like Prufrock have to rely on their PDQ machines which contains both chip & pin and the NFC hardware, and these terminals tend to stay behind the counter where customers cant see them or easily tap them unless handed over to them. It is a usability issue that has to be addressed.

Also on my list to complete today was the Take the boat and travel in style on the River Thames challenge. Despite successfully boarding the Thames Clipper at the Embankment Pier and alighting at the Bankside Pier, at both piers the ticketing booths were closed! There were no ticket sellers on board either! No doubt I will attempt again tomorrow and this time I will be boarding at a busier pier with an opened ticket booth, I promise!

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Gemalto NFC Contactless Challenge Day Three Catching Up

Day Three: Londons Burning

It is day three of my Gemalto Contactless Challenge, and I have finally made up some lost ground and caught up with Ewan:

My first NFC fail of the day comes courtesy of YO! Sushi. You may remember me blogging about them on day one where I attempted to buy lunch from their branch at St Pancras International. Giving them another chance, I visited the branch just opposite of St Pauls Cathedral. This branch is listed on Barclaycards list of venues that accept contactless payment.

Speaking with the manager, it appears that contactless payment was once deployed at the branch but it stopped working after a software upgrade. Further, it was never a popular method of payment as most customers spend more than the £20 cap would allow. Fair enough, I have always thought the £20 limit was a bit too stingy. While I agree that a limit should be imposed as a security measure, £20 is just far too low. £40-50 would have been perfect.

The future

Well, at least there was an EAT just across the road. Grabbing a duck gyoza noodle soup and a can of orange juice for lunch, I attempted to pay. Once again, I stumbled into an issue with payment. The NFC terminal kept beeping errors, and worse of all, the Quick Tap Wallet decided to stop working, complaining about the lack of a specific SIM card.

3/10

Luckily for me, it seems that contactless payment on phones can be made independently of the app, and the payment was successfully taken - this is literally like sticking a credit card on your phone. I certainly did not expect this, and while it saved me from some embarrassment while I rebooted the phone (which fixed the issue right away), I always thought the wallet mechanism acted as a security barrier.

After lunch I asked the cashier if contactless is popular at that very branch. It appears so, which surprised me because they didnt seem to have recognise my attempt at paying via contactless earlier. Still, NFC credit and debits cards are more popular than smartphones (or NFC stickers on phones), though these are slowly gaining in popularity.

Sure, why not.

One of the challenges I attempted to do on day one was to purchase a box of Krispy Kreme for friends and colleagues. Krispy Kreme once accepted contactless payment, but have decided they didnt want it for whatever reasons, which I find odd as queues at Krispy Kreme can go on forever. The challenge has since been revised to invest in a box of treats. In keeping with the original challenge, I really wanted to get some donuts, so after scouting the Tesco Express, Sainsburys and M&S: Simply Foods (all three accepts NFC payment), I settled for M&S.

Because M&S makes delicious donuts

As the weather was pretty rubbish for much of the day, I decided to give the Thames Clipper challenge a miss. I did however asked the ticket seller at Bankside Pier if they accept contactless and he declined that they do. With him pretty adamant about the whole they do not accept NFC payment and awful weather, I did not bother to push further.

I also decided to pay Tate Modern a quick visit today. Not only are the exhibits NFC-free, the tills at the gift stores, special exhibition ticket counters and cafes are curiously none-contactless. Which is a shame, as Tate Modern is that one single gallery I have always assumed would jump on the NFC bandwagon first.

Incidentally, look at what I found while rushing down Upper Thames Street? A PayByPhone parking terminal:

This needs to be NFCed

If ever there is something that would benefit greatly by having NFC, this is it. In San Francisco, PayByPhone has already integrated NFC into their metering machines. When tapped, this launches the PayByPhone application and uses the tags embedded from the scanned NFC tag to identify where the car is parked, and then charges the driver accordingly through whichever credit or debit card is tied to the account. It is such a brilliant concept and you wouldnt even need a mobile wallet for it to work.

Come on London, keep up with the times!

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