Boots UK has become the first major retailer to trial MasterCard’s Tap & Go contact less payment.

The health and beauty retailer accepted its first contactless transaction using MasterCard PayPass at its shop in Canary Wharf.

The service will initially be available in 21 shops across London and Liverpool. Boots claims customers will be able to Tap & Go for purchases under £15 in less than a second.

Ramon Mehra, operations and transformation director, Boots UK, said: “We continually look for new ways to make it quick and easy for customers to pay for our products and services in our stores. We believe that contactless payment could be an innovative way to speed up traditional card payment and, as part of this trial, we hope to see faster payment times at our tills where we implement this fully integrated solution.”

MasterCard claimed contactless payments have been shown to reduce queuing times by 15-20% and decrease the average transaction time by up to 40%.