Superstore Tesco is to release a new app, called PayQwiq, allowing customers to store their debit card and Tesco Clubcard details and pay for baskets worth up to £400. This limit is way above the current £30 limit set on those mobile or contactless payment solutions in the market today.
Having a superstore create its own payment app is nothing new. A group of retailers in the US (including Walmart) have been busy creating the the Merchant Customer exchange (MCX) in a bid to keep costs low, interchange fee lower and customer data to themselves, so it was only a matter of time before we saw the same thinking in the UK.
The PayQwiq app, which was developed by Tesco Bank, has already been tested with thousands of customers across around 50 stores in Edinburgh and London. Following that initial pilot, which sources said lasted “a couple of months”, Tesco is now extending the scheme to around 500 stores within the M25. Tesco is now inviting a group of 600,000 Clubcard holders to download and try out the app which will allow them to pay for purchases and collect Clubcard points at the same time. To do this, customers must register their Clubcard and payment cards with the app and then present a QR code on their phone to the cashier for scanning on the completion of their shop.
“At Tesco we are always looking to make the shopping trip better for customers and that’s why we’ve developed PayQwiq.With PayQwiq customers can pay for their shopping and collect their Clubcard points all with one simple scan of their phone. Feedback from customers who have used PayQwiq has been very positive and we are now extending the service to more customers and more stores”, commented a Tesco spokesman.
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