Baseball goes swipeless
ARLINGTON, Texas — The Texas Rangers hope to boost hot dog and beer sales this summer not only with a better team but with an innovation at the concession stands that’s spreading throughout the sports world — swipe-free credit-card terminals.
The players are doing their part — the Rangers are in first place in the AL West. And credit-card sales are accounting for about 10 to 12 percent of concession sales so far, which club officials consider a success.
“It’s easier for the fans, it’s quicker for the fans, and people will probably spend more money,” said Brad Alberts, a sales vice president for the Rangers.
The concession-stand terminals are part of Chase Bank’s effort to expand the use of contactless cards that don’t need to be swiped through a reader, just held near the device. Chase put terminals in movie theaters in Denver, a hockey arena in Atlanta and at convenience stores.
Similar terminals offered by MasterCard were installed last year at Qwest Field in Seattle, home of the Seahawks.
Scott Rau, a Chase senior vice president, said contactless cards can shave 30 seconds off the time it takes to make a cash transaction. This spring, more than 200 contactless credit-card terminals were installed at the Rangers’ Ameriquest Field ballpark, at a cost of about $150 each.
Chase doesn’t require a signature for purchases under $25. Bank officials say the cards are secure and won’t work unless they are held within an inch or two of a card reader. The cards use a technology called RFID, or radio-frequency identification.
So far, however, most Rangers fans seem to be using the old-fashioned approach of swiping their card, then entering a personal identification number or signing a receipt. A concession worker said during a recent game he’d never seen anyone use the contactless card.
That could be because the contactless credit cards that work with the new technology are still fairly limited. Chase Bank officials say they have distributed 7 million cards in Dallas, New York, Philadelphia and a few other metropolitan areas.
David Robertson, who follows the credit card industry as publisher of The Nilson Report, a trade publication for the consumer-payment industry, said merchants are reluctant to add contactless card readers until major debit-card issuers such as Bank of America join the fray.
Only about 1 percent of the 860 million Visa and MasterCard credit and debit cards issued in the United States are contactless, Robertson said.