Coffee chain's reusable Clever Cup brews up contactless payment
Costa, a UK chain, will let you pay for your latte with your cup.
The Clever Cup includes a contactless payment chip
A UK coffeehouse wants you to pay with your reusable cup, so you can save the environment, get your caffeine quicker and perhaps become a more loyal customer.
Costa is launching the Clever Cup equipped with a Barclaycard contactless payment chip, the companies said Wednesday.
The £15 ($19/AU$27) cup can be topped up using Barclay's bPay app.
The cup's chip will actually work wherever contactless payments are accepted. The cup has a silicon base and the chip is removable so you can wash the cup.
"We hope to appeal to ... tech-savvy customers to help facilitate and drive environmentally friendly behaviour," Jason Cotta, Costa's managing director, said in a statement. "We already offer a 25p discount on hot drinks in all our stores for customers using reusable cups, and hope the innovative Clever Cup will become an additional incentive for increasing the use of reusable cups."
Innovative payment and coffee seem to go hand in hand. Starbucks started offering a payment app in 2010 was crowned the king of mobile payments in May. Starbucks beat out Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay for the title.
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