This is only the start, says credit card provider, with plans to give cards to all customers by 2011

Barclaycard will issue more than one million contactless cards this year as part of its migration programme to the new technology.

Central to the financial services provider's contactless operations is OnePulse, the three-in-one card featuring Oyster travelcard, credit and contactless payment functions, which was launched in September in London alongside in-store technology OneTouch.

Following the successful introduction of the combined cards, Barclaycard Business began a countrywide rollout of contactless technology. So far, more than 4,000 retail outlets across the UK are able to accept the touch-and-go” system and the company expects to have 20,000 businesses under its network by year-end.

“We are very committed to contactless payments and this is only the start,” Barclaycard head of contactless payments James McDonald told Computing.

“By 2011, every Barclaycard customer will have a contactless card in their pockets,” he said.

Businesses with a high volume of sales under £10 could gain value out of fast transaction times, but there is still a lot of education to be done to convince the retail industry about the benefits of contactless payments, said McDonald.

“We are currently working with a number of medium- and large-size retailers already. Very big retailers are not on board yet as they are still going through the evaluation of their business cases to decide how and when they would like to roll out the technology,” he said.

Coffee chain Eat is the latest retailer to partner with Barclaycard and is using contactless payment to speed up transactions and reduce the need to handle change.

Other retailers set to go live with Barclaycard terminals include The National Trust, which will implement the technology across 500 terminals in its gift shops, tearooms, restaurants and admission payment points across the UK.