Carol singers collect via contactless card
Howard Lake | 9 December 2011 | News
The London Community Gospel Choir serenaded shoppers in London’s Covent Garden on Wednesday and collected for charity using cashless cards only. While the choir performed, people were able simply to hold their contactless cards over the charity collection bucket that had been equipped with contactless technology in order to make their donation.
The donations were made using pre-paid cards provided for the purpose by Barclays and Barclaycard, so in practice the donations came from the Barclaycard. Each donation of £5 made from the cards through the payment system on the contactless collection bucket was donated to Help a Capital Child, and £2,500 was raised.
Contactless cards enable people to make purchases of £15 or less, without the need to enter a PIN or their card into a payment terminal. Once the card has been held over the contactless terminal, the transaction uses a secure network to add automatically the purchase to the customer’s credit card bill or debit it from their current account.
Richard Armstrong, Head of UK Payment Acceptance at Barclaycard, said: “At this time of the year, shoppers are often caught short of change when they hear Christmas carollers singing on the high street for charity. We introduced the UK’s first contactless carol singers at London’s Covent Garden to make it easier and quicker for people to make donations on the go.”
Barclays says that there are over 15.3 million contactless Barclays debit and Barclaycard credit cards in circulation in the UK.
Although the donation was made digitally the charity does not receive contact details of the donor.
www.Barclays.co.uk/contactless
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.