Dutch trying first mobile supermarket shopping trial

The Netherlands has seen the launch of the first European trial of paying for your supermarket shopping by mobile.

The six-month pilot, run by LogicaCMG at a branch of Dutch chain C1000, involves 100 customers paying for their shopping on their mobiles, using an existing online PIN payment system. Each customer has an online account with Rabobank.

The users’ phones are equipped with technology supporting wireless information exchange – e.g. payments – over a short distance. The phone is held next to a reader at the checkout and after the customer enters their PIN, a chip in the phone transmits a unique ID linked to the shopper’s bank account. Hence they pay with their bank account, not their mobile phone bill.

C100 owner Wout van der Wal has said customers have been excited by the simplicity of the system and the fact that they are using trusted companies for it: “Paying with a mobile phone saves time and hassle and reduces queues,” he said.

[From VNUnet]

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