Barclaycard unveils stick-on PayTag NFC card

Describes it as a mobile payments system, even though you could stick it on anything.

PayTag is essentially a regular NFC-enabled card, but about a third of the size of a standard issue card and with an adhesive back.

This means you can stick it discreetly to the back of a phone. But the card doesn't connect in any way to any secure element or wallet inside a mobile, so really it's not a mobile product at all.

It's available at no cost to Barclaycard Visa cardholders as an extension of their  credit card account.

David Chan, CEO of Barclaycard Consumer Europe, said: “Today, we are offering the choice of mobile payments to millions of our customers at no additional cost to them.

"More than half of us say that the item we’re most lost without is our mobile phone , so we’re giving people the option of using them to make easy, convenient, everyday payments without the need to upgrade their current handset.”

The announcement follows two major launches by Barclaycard in the mobile space, namely Pingit (the person to person mobile money transfer app) and Simply Tap (the NFC mobile wallet service created in collaboration with Orange).

In the UK, NFC can be used to make payments of £15 and under, rising to £20 in June. It's estimated the number of contactless point-of-sale terminals in the UK will rise by 50 per cent to 150,000 this year.

Research carried out on Barclaycard’s behalf predicts that £3 billion worth of purchases will be made with mobile phones in the UK in 2016 .  Barclaycard PayTag provides customers with the choice of simple mobile phone payments now, without having to wait to upgrade, and at no additional cost.

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