New contactless donations introduced

New donation boxes have been developed with NFC receivers that allow them to accept contactless credit or debit card payments, just like a shop or restaurant.

Barclaycard originally trialled the new contactless donation boxes on eleven charities, including, Oxfam and the NSPCC back in September 2016. During this trial, the payment was set at £2 as standard, however, donors were allowed to give as much as they wished. When testing this new donation method, the NSPCC said that the average donation using this new method was £3.07, which, when compared to the average cash donation of £1, is a very substantial increase.

In a survey conducted by Barclaycard, it was found that one in seven people admitted to walking past charity collectors at least once last year without donating as they had no cash to do so. The new contactless donation boxes aim to put a stop to this, making donating to charity a simple, convenient process.

Whilst the trial was only forecast to last three months, there are a number of charities that are still using this new donation method, and Barclaycard hopes to introduce the contactless boxes across the UK in the not too distant future.