Pret A Manger: contactless payment roll out

Pret A Manger, the UK high street food chain, is rolling out contactless payment across its estate of 178 stores.

The launch follows a pilot in seven Pret A Manger shops across London and will be extended to the remaining 171 UK Pret stores over the next six months.

The phased rollout, which will complete in April 2009, will see Barclaycard contactless payment technology introduced to Pret stores in towns and cities including London, Manchester, York, Brighton, Birmingham, Oxford, Cambridge and Southampton.

These stores join Barclaycard’s growing contactless network. More than 6,000 outlets accept contactless payments throughout the UK.

Commidea, a leading card payment-processing provider, developed the contactless solution, which is claimed to dramatically reduce queuing times for consumers.

Pret A Manger follows several well-known high-street names such as Coffee Republic, EAT, and Yo! Sushi that have signed up to contactless in a drive to provide customers with a fast, simple and secure method of paying.

Simon Hargraves, director of food and communications at Pret A Manger, said: “At Pret, we pride ourselves on amazing food, passionate people and incredible customer service. 

“Speed is incredibly important to us and by working with Barclaycard and Commidea we’re able to install an efficient contactless system to give our customers a quicker method of payment and an improved customer experience.

“The new system has been received well so far and we have committed to rolling out contactless across our entire network of UK shops during 2009.”

Contactless payments allow customers to purchase items of £10 and under without the need to enter their PIN or sign or wait long periods at the point of sale. The customer is simply required to wave their contactless card in front of the Barclaycard terminal.

“We are delighted that Pret A Manger has decided to integrate contactless payment with our existing Chip and PIN solution,” said Giles Cooper, head of sales and Marketing at Commidea.

“Retailers need to find as many ways as possible to make their stores more appealing to consumers. Convenience and fast-moving queues through the use of contactless are one such way of doing this.”