Quick Tap brings contactless mobile payments to the UK for the first time.
After all the hype and the many trials, here's a live service that's not happening in Japan or Korea.
Orange Customers can make purchases £15 and under nationwide by tapping their Quick Tap mobile handset against a contactless reader at over 50,000 shops and cafes like Pret A Manger, EAT, Subway, Wilkinson and McDonalds.
It's all being made possible by the embedding of Quick Tap into a SIM within an NFC-enabled phone. The first of these will be the Samsung Tocco Lite on pay as you go and pay monthly price plans.
Barclaycard, Barclays debit or Orange Credit Card users can transfer funds of up to £100 onto the handset, after which the phone is ready to make payments of £15 and under in a single transaction.
These top-ups are transacted across the official QuickTap app, which sits on the home screen of all Quick Tap compatible handsets, and can also deliver statements.
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Barclaycard is providing Orange customers with £10 upon activation, and ten per cent cash back on all Quick Tap purchases made in the first three months.
Pippa Dunn, VP of Orange, believes this is the start of a major new direction for mobile and the biggest revolution in payments since credit cards were introduced in the UK by Barclaycard over 40 years ago.
She said: "We no longer use our mobile phones simply for talking and texting - apps, cameras and music players allow us to use them for a lot more.
"So, making contactless payments with your mobile is a natural and really exciting innovation which we're pleased to be leading on in the UK."
It's a big day alright. There's still scepticism around NFC, and it's certainly the case that existing card-based projects like Mastercard PayPass (on which this is based) have failed to gather mainstream use.
So the big challenge is retail and consumer buy-in. Orange and Barclaycard say the launch will be supported by a major marketing campaign.
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