You may be aware of Barclaycard OnePulse, a credit card that offers up a triple-play of credit card, Oyster card and OnePulse cashless payment system, all combined into one, er.. card.

This is pretty cool from a technology standpoint and I use the Oyster part of it every day for my daily commute. I even bought my season ticket using the card, which I felt had a pleasing tidiness to it.

The cashless payment system means that you can pay for items up to £10 in value by just swiping your card onto a touchpad, without having to enter a PIN. For the busy office worker this could save quite a bit of time by not having to fiddle with change or spend time entering a PIN and waiting for a confirmation. If this system was universal it would surely boost productivity country-wide as those saved seconds added up.

I’ve read that in roughly one in every ten payments using you will have to enter a PIN, a bit like the approach that Google takes with its Google Browser sync, (a tool that incidentally I have found to be superbly useful). I imagine that the thinking behind this is that should your card be pilfered only up to £100 is at risk, which in the credit card fraud world is relatively small fry.

I can’t confirm whether the PIN needs to be re-entered as I’ve only used the system once as right now there are only a few shops where you can use them. The list currently includes Books etc, Threshers, Coffee republic, Yo! Sushi, EAT and Krispy Kreme. It’s the fat inducing, English language mangling, latter entry where I used it first, and the cashier at the airport store got mildly excited when I suggested I try it out.

“We’re never used this before,” he told me. “That makes two of us”. I informed him. So you touch, it beeps, it works. Thrilling stuff.

A few weeks later I thought I’d have another go and deliberately sought the local EAT round the corner for the Dennis offices in the West End. When I brought out my card at the counter, I was met with the blankest look I think I’ve ever seen. If the woman had looked any blanker I was genuinely concerned she would keel over having forgotten how to breathe. By showing her a real five pound note, I think I may actually have saved her life.

So like any technology, a system is only as good as its support, whether it’s cashless payment cards or HD DVDs.

Some may be concerned with the security aspect but the lack of support from the retail industry is surely the most effective protection the system could possibly have.

I like the system so I say, look after your cards, and bring it on.