Barclaycard today celebrates the 25th anniversary of its Processes Data Quickly – PDQ – terminals, the electronic equipment that has helped revolutionise the UK payments industry.
Introduced on 25 March 1986, at Brent Cross shopping centre, PDQ was the first payments service to act as a single electronic plastic card terminal at point-of-sale. It enabled retailers to manage large volumes of credit card sales for the first time.
Stuart Neal Director of International Development at Barclaycard said: “Everyone at Barclaycard would like to wish PDQ terminals a very happy twenty-fifth birthday. Thanks to the introduction of PDQ terminals retailers have been able to manage transactions quickly and securely for millions of consumers.”
The introduction of PDQ terminals was the first step towards delivering innovative payment solutions for retailers, something Barclaycard has continued over the past twenty five years. Barclaycard and Barclays have issued over 11 million contactless cards in the UK and provided 52,000 ccontactless payment terminals to retailers, and recently announced the launch of the UK’s first commercial contactless mobile phone payments.
Stuart Neal at Barclaycard continued: “Since the introduction of PDQ, there have been many milestones and lots of things have changed but PDQ has continued to provide a fast and easy way for retailers to accept card payments.”
Barclaycard, part of Barclays Retail and Business Banking, is a leading global payment business which helps consumers, retailers and businesses to make and accept payments flexibly, and to access short-term credit when needed.
The company is one of the pioneers of new forms of payments and is at the forefront of developing viable contactless and mobile payment schemes for today and cutting edge forms of payment for the future. It also issues credit and charge cards to corporate customers and the UK Government. Barclaycard partners with a wide range of organisations across the globe to offer their customers or members payment options and credit.
In addition to the UK, Barclaycard operates in the United States, Europe and Africa.
Key facts published in February 2012;
- number of customers: 23.5m
- number of retailer/merchant relationships: 87,000
Barclays.com