Use Your Car Key to Unlock Mobile Payments?

We’ve seen a lot of noteworthy media used to start mobile payments. We’ve seen cards, we’ve seen smartphones, we’ve seen smartwatches…but now, we’re seeing something even more unusual. It’s a new development from Barclaycard and Citroen, who’s bringing the system to Citroen’s DS Automobiles line.

While that’s a rather narrow field—many of us outside of the UK likely haven’t even heard of Citroen let alone the DS Automobiles concept—there are reports that the concept will expand if the DS Automobiles drivers actually put their payment keys to work in sufficient numbers.

The keys themselves contain an RFID system that allows for tap-and-pay functionality, letting users take out their keys, tap them against a payment terminal, and effectively unlock payments. Barclaycard tried contactless payments last year in the form of bracelets, and while these didn’t catch on, the concept of touch-and-go payment technology did. With around 60 percent of Brits actually using such tools today, and spending projected to reach 317 percent of current levels by 2021, there’s every reason to try again.

Barclaycard mobile payments director of innovation and partnerships Tami Hargreaves commented “This 2 – in – 1 device is the first of its kind in production and integrates our bPay payment chip with an existing DS car key to offer drivers a fast, easy and secure way to make contactless purchases with just a touch of their car keys.”

If this was a way to make it pretty much impossible to forget your mobile payment system of choice, then congratulations, Citroen and Barclaycard, because this is about the best way short of an actual tattoo. If you’ve forgotten your wallet at some point, congratulations, because you’re in a real exclusive club known as “almost everybody.” Your smartphone, kind of the same deal, assuming you even have one. But if you forget your car keys, well, you probably didn’t even leave the house or you’re probably within a mile of it, so you can go back and get them without incident.

Car keys are the kind of thing everyone generally has on hand, so tying mobile payments to these means a payment system is on hand most everywhere you go. A fantastic idea, and one that should catch on.