Barclays introduces virtual credit card replacement
All those who have a habit of losing their credit cards, only to end up somewhere without a means to pay, rejoice!
Barclaycard has announced a new service, UK’s first, which allows for the instant replacement of a lost credit card -- first virtually, followed by a real card replacement.
The service works by calling the contract center for free from the Barclaycard app. After that, the virtual replacement card will be instantly downloaded to the smartphone, allowing the customer to pay straight away.
That way, those red-faced situations in which people realize they have no means to pay until it’s too late, can be avoided. A physical card replacement follows soon after. Besides being able to pay for transactions of up to £30 using contactless, customers with Android Contactless Mobile can enter their PIN and pay for transactions of up to £100 using the touch and go technology.
"With cards increasingly being used to pay for everything from the morning coffee to an evening meal, going about your life while your card is somewhere else can lead to potentially awkward situations", says Tami Hargreaves, commercial director of digital consumer payments at Barclaycard. "With contactless spending now over a billion pounds a month, we may even be witnessing the beginning of the end for the bar tab as we currently know it".
It makes sense. Barclaycard’s recent research has shown that almost a sixth of 21-55 year olds questioned reported that they have forgotten their credit or debit card behind the bar, with nearly half only realizing later, when they tried to pay for something else.
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