Barclaycard has been steadily expanding their bPay range with new products and the Loop is the latest to enter the range.
What you get in the box is a contactless card and the Loop rubber holder; that’s literally it. For £19.99, the design of the Loop is a bit flimsy and we found that it fell off watches and wearables incredibly easy. The fastening on the back should’ve been a more rigid material, as the rubber brackets bend far too easily. There was a few times over the course of the Barclaycard bPay Loop review where we thought we had lost the device. The only way to secure it was by adding some sellotape around the holder once it was on the wrist.
Once the card is in the holder and it’s secure on your wrist, you can then download the bPay application. The app is available on both Android and iOS. You’ll go through a very simple setup process where you need to register some details and sync the card to the app. After registering your details and inputting the unique code of your card, you can then link your bank card to the application.
When you initially link your card to the application, it’ll ask you for an amount to top up. This ranges from £5 to £200 and can be set up so it will automatically add money when your wallet it getting low. The app will try to force you into setting up an automatic top up system, though you can turn it off after the initial message.
Once this is all setup, the process is incredibly smooth and fluent. During our Barclaycard bPay Loop Review we tried it at several readers ranging from Tesco to Boots, all of them worked flawlessly. You simply tap it on the reader when the contactless symbol is there and that’s it. There’s no need to have the application running or even suspended in the background, as the service will continue to work even when it’s closed. This is a major advantage over competitors such as Android Pay and Apple Pay, which either require the app to work or need additional connectivity services enabled such as NFC.
There’s really very little else to say regarding the bPay Loop because as we said, it just works. Aside from the design flaw, it’s a nifty little thing that makes contactless payments even easier than before. Once we found a way to make it secure on the wrist, we found ourselves using contactless payments more than ever because of it. The only question we found ourselves asking is if the Loop is worth the £19.99 asking price. It’s a lot for something that you can get on your smartphone for free and while the convenience over competitive services is great, we feel that the initial price should’ve been a little lower.
A small, unobtrusive little contacless peripheral that does exactly what it says on the box, without any hassle. If you can get it to stay on your wrist, you’ll be making payments all day without even realising it’s there.
