Contact-less payments became a popular payment method for purchases with the rise of COVID 19. Most banks equipped contact-less payment terminals and offers various contact-less payment cards. It allows people to pay for goods or services without making direct contact with a machine or other device.
What is contact-less payments?
Contact-less payments (also known as chip cards) is a secure payment method to purchase products or services via debit, credit or smart cards, smart phones and other smart devices. These cards uses RFID* technology or NFC* technology.
To make a contact-less payment A person simply needs to tap their smart card near a point of sale terminal.
Since contact-less payment doesn’t require a signature or a PIN, transaction sizes are limited.
Where to use them?
However, there are smaller shops that do not offer tap and go capabilities, but many national chains have moved to tap capable payment terminals.
The main benefit of contact-less payment is that it speeds up transactions by taking the step where the customer needs to enter their PIN. Tap customers somehow speed up the line, so the merchant and the customer see time savings when contact-less payment is used.
How can you tell if your Visa card can make contact-less payments?
Easy. If the Contact-less Indicator contact-less indicator icon appears on the front or back of your card, you can use it to tap to pay at millions of merchants worldwide.
Secure
Just as secure as your chip card. Each transaction is accompanied by a one-time code that protects your payment information. Also, you can’t pay accidentally — your card must be within 1–2 inches of the terminal for the sale to register. And you won’t be billed twice, even if you tap twice.
Security
Contact-less payment uses the same chip and PIN network as normal cards. When a new user is registered, he must first (and periodically) complete a transaction using his PIN or the card will no longer be usable.
With convenience surely comes risk — or so you might think.
If you’re worried about hundreds of dollars being stolen from you, this won’t happen. Contact-less payment, relative to economic conditions in your country, has a spend limit per transaction. If someone tries to execute repeat transactions, they will eventually be locked out and the owner will be asked for their PIN. This self-verification can be extremely secure, particularly in the form of a fingerprint.
The number of contact-less users is likely to continue to increase. This obliges European companies to adopt appropriate standards for contact-less payment, including the maximum magnetic field for card readers, the means to refuse contact-less payment and more detailed statistics on the scale of theft due to fraud.
Hopefully, knowing all of the facts (and seeing through the fiction) helps ease your mind if you have a contact-less card.
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Enplugged Contributors
Enplugged Media Ltd.
