Barclays wants contactless payments to be available on more than just smartphones and wearables. To push its contactless effort forward, Barclays announced a partnership with Scottish knitwear brand Lyle & Scott to create a contactless jacket.
That’s right, you can now pay for things with a jacket. A small bPay chip is embedded into the cuff, allowing the jacket’s wearer to scan and pay. Barclays will be using its own contactless technology and app, instead of Apple Pay or Android Pay.
Lyle & Scott has not made a lot of adjustments to the jacket to incorporate the bPay chip, so it looks like a normal jacket on the outside. It will cost £150 ($230), which is quite a large investment for anyone interested in contactless payments. You can buy it on Lyle & Scott’s website.
The product launch comes a few days after news that the United Kingdom lifted limits on contactless payments from £20 to £30. The limit change has been met with some resistance from security firms, which claim that contactless is still an insecure way to pay.
Barclays is one of the most active British banks working on contactless payment options, including a wristband, fob, and sticker. The bPay app is available for Android and iOS users, and lets you pay for goods on your phone without using alternative services. The app is regularly updated to keep up to date with new products that use contactless payments.
Even with all of this investment, Barclays has not pledged support for Android Pay and was holding off from supporting Apple Pay. It was the only British bank that didn’t declare support for Apple Pay on launch, but customer complaints quickly changed the bank’s view. It will now support Apple Pay by the end of the year. However, Barclays clearly wants customers to continue using its own apps and products, too.
