PayPal card and contactless payments arrive in Ubiquitous Black Cabs

Card and contactless payments arrive in Ubiquitous Black Cabs via PayPal’s NFC enabled card reader, PayPal Here From this month if you’re in London and hopping into a Black Cab, there is a growing likelihood that you will be able to pay for your ride with a debit or credit card or even with Apple Pay, using PayPal’s NFC enabled Chip and PIN card reader, called PayPal Here. PayPal, one of the world’s leading digital and mobile payment companies, is delighted that PayPal Here has been approved as a card payment solution by Transport for London (TfL). This was announced in November 2015, ahead of TfL’s announcement to mandate card payment facilities in all London taxis, from October 2016.

To kick-start card payments in Black Cabs, PayPal is running taxi advertising with Ubiquitous, the UK’s leading taxi advertising company. The taxi advertising activity is primarily aimed at London taxi drivers and alerts them to the availability of PayPal Here as a contactless and card payment solution for their taxi. As for all businesses using PayPal Here, the solution offers one of the lowest transaction fees in the market* – a key consideration for taxi drivers. Another key advantage of the reader is that payments made to the business via PayPal Here are deposited immediately into the business’s PayPal account, meaning there is no wait for the money to reach your account. As part of the advertising activity, inside the taxis passengers will see the tip-seat posters during their journey, which communicate the choice and availability of being able to pay for their taxi journey with a debit or credit card payment, including contactless payment, via PayPal Here. PayPal Here accepts MasterCard, Maestro, American Express and Visa cards and even Apple Pay.

Rob Harper, Director of Mobile Commerce, PayPal UK commented, “There are more than 22,500 Black Cabs in London, offering a first class service throughout the capital. However, more people expect to be able to pay by card when they grab a cab, and are frustrated to find that many taxis don’t take cards. We hope to remedy this by working with Ubiquitous to make PayPal Here the choice of both London’s cabbies and passengers in 2016, giving people the option to pay via debit or credit card and by contactless card and mobile payments.”

PayPal is globally recognised and trusted by consumers as an easy and secure way to pay for goods and services, so why not use its card reader in Black Cab rides too? Commenting on this, Andrew Barnett, Managing Director of Ubiquitous said, “In 2016 we will see London’s Black Cabs catch up with the rest of the world by offering card and contactless payment as standard. We are delighted to be working with PayPal to offer what we strongly feel is the best card payment solution for drivers and passengers; one which will help London’s iconic Black Taxis to better compete in a market that is increasingly driven by technology, which now includes the option of faster, easier payment via contactless.”