I returned to the car park where I had parked my car and paid for the parking.

Better?

Much better, thank you

No worries.

Was still shocked that paying for the parking was done so easily. Just swiping the card and walking.

Believe 'contactless' payment is going to be the way forward also?

Payment via mobile devices.

Chips that slide into your mobile phone cover - I think Barclays are looking at doing that? So let me get this right - you steal my phone, which has some of my internet stuff on to start with, and you get my swipe chip at the same time? Not going on in my house!


And am I the only person who uses pay and display car parks then?

You are correct in that is what Barclays are doing, however that is not the direction most are aiming at.
Apps which connect to an agreed payment provider portal allowing access to your existing account which in turn is used to pay for services or goods. Pretty much like anybody who uses Amazon or e-bay does right now. Already in existence in many service areas such as hospitality, and will mushroom over the coming 24 months.

Your mobile acts in much the same way as your home PC does now, except nowhere on the phone are your account details stored, all that is stored is the app to link to the portal where your pin or password is used to access your account, Far easier for anybody to hack your PC and place a keyboard logger on it than to try to gain access to your A/C via your phone.

That's the theory anyway

Yes, and C&P is more secure than signing.

That's the theory, anyway....

The reality of chip and pin is that it's not to do with being more secure but more about banks being able to pass responsibility for fraud back to the client. Don't even get me started on PCI-DSS!