By Andy Williams, Contributing Editor

If contactless payments are to take off, then every card produced by credit card companies in the future needs to include a contactless chip. More importantly, consumers using the card need to be better educated on how to recognize the card and how to use it. Those were just a couple of tips delivered by an executive from a major takeout restaurant chain at the recent CTST show in Orlando.

One problem is that despite promotional efforts from the major credit card issuers about simply tapping a contactless card against a reader, more education is still needed–among consumers and store employees.

During the CTST show co-sponsored by the Smart Card Alliance and SourceMedia, Gavin Waugh, vice president and assistant treasurer for Arby’s Restaurant Group, described his company’s experiences with contactless cards. It wasn’t pretty and shows that contactless technology has a long way to go before it comes close to equaling payments made the mag stripe way.

The company has implemented contactless at its 1,000 corporate-owned stores with 100% inside the restaurants, and just 80% installation at its drive-throughs. He said that some existing stores’ drive through areas weren’t conducive to having a contactless reader which could have caused longer lines. The company’s franchise operations aren’t required to implement contactless technology. While he did not present figures on the number of franchisees, he did say there was interest from them to implement contactless.