Contactless cards allow no-touch payments
Last Updated: Monday, September 3, 2007 | 12:04 PM ET
CBC News

There's yet another option for consumers on the run who don't want to wait for change after buying a cup of coffee or gassing up: the contactless card.

The debit or credit cards, such as the Chase Bank's Blink or MasterCard's PayPass, let users make a payment by simply waving them near a reader. No swiping is necessary.
使用渣打银行的Blink卡和万事达的PayPass卡只需要在阅读器前晃一下就可以了，无需刷卡。

Using a contactless card can take "less than half a second," MasterCard's Oliver Steeley told the BBC on Monday. The company is now introducing its system in Britain.

"The payment card industry estimates that over five million contactless cards will be issued by the end of 2008, and that they will be accepted by over 100,000 merchant locations," MasterCard UK said in a news release announcing the launch.

In Canada, some Tim Hortons and Petro-Canada outlets are accepting PayPass cards, MasterCard's Canadian website said.
加拿大的Tim Hortons咖啡店和Petro-Canada加油站接受PayPass卡。

The cards use radio frequency identification technology, the same process that powers London Transport's Oyster travel card system.
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Oyster is a smartcard which can store a £90 credit to be used on London's subways, buses, light rail transit trains, trams and some regular railway runs in the city.

It's the same technology that enables drivers to pay road tolls with a microchip fixed to the car windshield.

A competing technology turns cellphones into electronic wallets. In January, Visa announced a plan that would let people make payments by passing their cellphones near a special reader.

And Sony Corp. and NXP Semiconductors have combined to create a global standard for a secure chip that will turn cellphones into payment devices.