The age of NFC is upon us, with Orange and Barclaycard announcing the second in their line of ‘Quick Tap’ mobile handsets, the Samsung Wave 578, that will let users perform mobile payments from their phone.
The Wave 578 hides the contactless payment tech behind a dinky 3.2-inch display, and also offers a 3.2MP camera, 16GB of memory and the latest version of Samsung’s own Bada operating system.
Once activated, early adopters will be able to use their NFC phones to make purchases at over 50,000 shops across the UK, including Subway, McDonalds, EAT, Pret a Manger and Wembley Arena. As a little extra incentive, Barclaycard are giving Orange customers £10 in credit on their 578s, as well as 10% cashback on all NFC payments for the first 90 days.
“Paying with a mobile phone means never being without the right change, and always having access to funds.” Said CEO of Barclaycard Consumer Europe, David Chan. “That’s why I believe contactless mobile is the future of payments, and I’m keen it’s made available to as many of our customers as possible.”
Samsung have been leading the charge on NFC payments, with the technology first appearing (way ahead of its time) on the Samsung-manufactured Google Nexus S last year.
Orange say that the Wave 578 will be available at Orange stores up and down the country “in the coming weeks.”
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