Swindon has long been seen as a microcosm of the UK. Politically, it has been a ‘bellwether’ seat since 1983, and in 2008 the Office of National Statistics identified it as the most average town in the country. This might explain why the town has frequently been chosen as a proving-ground for new products, and why, in 1995, the NatWest bank picked Swindon to trial its new ‘currency card’, Mondex.
Mondex was a kind of electronic wallet, the precursor to the debit cards that are used everywhere today. Customers could sign up for the scheme at the Mondex shop on Regent Street and use their new card – embedded with an electronic chip – at any outlet equipped with a special card reader. As well as in shops, terminals were installed in car parks, buses and payphones. 6,000 users signed up in the first five weeks of the trial, and there were 1,900 terminals across 620 different locations. Mondex – in its many different iterations and under various operators – was trialled either publicly or internally in 19 other countries, but Swindon was the first, most thorough, and arguably most successful of these trials.
The concept of Mondex may have been simple, but the brand’s history was more convoluted. It was first developed in 1990 by Tim Jones and Graham Higgins of NatWest, but by the time it hit the streets of Swindon the scheme had been joined by the Midland Bank, with additional funding and hardware provided by BT. The intellectual rights were sold in 1996 to a new banking conglomerate called Mondex International. Later that year Mastercard acquired a majority stake in Mondex International, and took full ownership of the company in 2001.
In Mondex’s early days, a significant amount of branded merchandise was given away. The baseball caps, keyrings and pens became a common sight across Swindon. But the novelty soon wore off, and the use of Mondex in retail outlets diminished markedly over the three years that the trial was in place. As early as 1996 a reporter for the Guardian found that Mondex was stuck in a vicious circle, and ‘few could bother with it’. The scheme – and the Mondex brand – was quietly swept under the carpet, but the idea behind it proved prescient, and the first step towards our almost cash-free society had been taken.
Visit our History of Swindon Galleries to view items related to the town’s Mondex trial.
