GPS Captures Contactless Lightning in a Bottle
You’ve heard of wearables—now meet “drinkables.” Global Processing Services (GPS) is helping support a new energy drink marketing campaign featuring special bottles equipped with contactless chips, each preloaded with a credit for a trip on the London Underground. The campaign for the Lucozade Energy brand launched last week, with bottles distributed free at major London train stations and commuter hubs.
GPS is providing processing services for the payments chip component of the bottles, which were designed by London-based fintech startup MuchBetter.com. The company’s just-launched platform is built around a prepaid account issued by e-money issuer MIR Limited UK, through which it provides payments and other services via various devices and form factors across Europe. DIGISEQ, which specializes in wearables and Internet of Things-based payments, also is a partner in the marketing initiative.
The campaign represents “an opportunity to demonstrate how payment technology is evolving far beyond plastic cards,” said Suresh Vaghjiani, managing director, GPS. “The Lucozade Energy paytech bottle is a great example of how combining a leading lifestyle product with new payment technology can make people’s day flow better.”
London has been among the world’s leading cities in pushing contactless payments in mass transit—via both cards and mobile devices. Last year, the city’s transit authority struck a licensing deal with Cubic Transportation Systems to bring London’s contactless transit payments system to other cities around the globe.
Related stories:
- Uncle Sam Wants You—Yes, You—to Help Secure the Internet of Things
- Special Report: Igniting Payments Change
- Transport for London Licenses Technology to Cubic
