028 9056 8006 TESCO GOES ‘CASHLESS’

First card-only store is trialled

TESCO has opened its first cashless store and cut queueing times to just 45 seconds.

And two more could follow, boss Dave Lewis has hinted.

The supermarket’s pilot scheme follows a similar one by Waitrose and a scan-and-go app trialled by Co-op.

But Labour MP Frank Field said banning cash transactions will hit the poorest and most vulnerable.

He said: “I hope Tesco will pause on this development and treat this store as a one-off. I am concerned on the effect long-term plans would have on the poor who don’t have credit cards and groups like pensioners who prefer to pay by cash.

“Tesco did not make its fortune from the cashless economy.”

The pilot Tesco Express opened six weeks ago at its head office “campus” in Welwyn Garden City, Herts.

Signs at the store state it accepts card or mobile phone payments only. Britain is the world’s third- largest cashless society after Canada and Sweden.

Plastic overtook cash here for the first time last year, when there were 13.2 billion cashless payments, including debit cards and digital wallets such as Apple Pay, compared with 13.1 billion cash transactions.

Mr Lewis said more stores could go cashless but only after the current self-checkouts have passed their sell-by date. He said: “If we keep the same machines but switch off the cash function people will get confused.”

Steven Blair, who is spearheading Tesco’s cashless project, added: “Customers in a hurry want to be in and out in 90 seconds – cashless reduces that time to 45 seconds.”