The global pandemic has significantly affected our lives: it required quick adaptation to the new reality and changes in everyday habits. All over the world people refuse to be outdoors for a long time and try to avoid public places. We spend almost all our time at home, and many of us – residents of the capital and a number of other large cities that have been quarantined – are limited to going outside only in cases of emergency.
But the need to make regular payments has remained unchanged, in particular, the purchase of essential goods: food, medicine, household goods, gasoline, and so on.
At the same time, retailers must also serve their customers, ensuring the safety of both customers and staff. Each side is looking for ways to best meet these needs in the face of the necessary social distancing and hygiene requirements, and we see even greater interest in fast and secure agency banking solution instruments that reduce the need for physical contact.
While e-commerce is driving the growing shipping industry, contactless payments offer an optimal solution for making transactions in the presence of the cardholder.
Contactless payments solution provides consumers with an easy, fast and secure way to pay, especially as smartphones and smart contactless wearable devices connected to the web are becoming more and more important in our lives. Their number is predicted to almost triple globally by 2025: from 26 billion IoT devices today to 75 billion by 2025, or about 9 devices per consumer.
Agency banking services like contactless payments allow you to avoid touching the payment terminal, there is no need to enter a PIN-code, you just need to bring the card to the terminal. Contactless payments speed up payment, which reduces the time spent in the store line. In addition, such payments help to avoid contact with pathogenic microorganisms that can be found on paper money or on the surface of the terminal.
Below we will remind you which contactless payment methods our clients can use. Let’s also talk about the limits of various payment options.
Contactless bank cards
From 26 March until the end of the emergency, the limit for payments with contactless cards in Estonia has been increased to 50 euros. When paying for goods or services, just bring your bank card to the payment terminal. There is no need to enter your PIN every time. Before paying, make sure that the merchant supports contactless payments (the terminal must have a contactless payment symbol). More details
Contactless payments using smartphones on Android
To pay using Android smartphones, you first need to download our application, select MasterCard there and enter the settings. Then you can easily pay with your Android phone. To pay, open your phone, bring it to the payment terminal. Everything is very simple! Thus, you can pay for purchases worth up to 150 euros. More details
Contactless payments with Apple Pay
If you want to pay using your iPhone or Apple Watch, you can use the Apple Pay payment solution. In order to activate it, open our application and add your MasterCard to it.
To pay using Apple Pay, you must also bring the device to the payment terminal. When paying with Apple Pay, your usual limit applies, which you set for card payments. More details
Contactless payments with Fitbit and Garmin smartwatches
This solution is especially popular with people who are constantly on the move. Before paying with a Fitbit or Garmin smartwatch, set up your payment options according to their instructions. Payment is made with one movement of the hand. The smartwatch payment limit is the same that you set for payments with your card. More details
There are 4 reasons to opt for contactless payments:
- Contactless payment is up to three times faster than paying in cash and twice as fast as entering a PIN.
- Contactless payments are as secure as PIN payments.
- With a contactless card and smart device, you can pay wherever there is a corresponding symbol and where MasterCard cards are accepted.
- Contactless payments help to protect your health, since you do not need to touch paper money and ATMs. In the interests of security, sometimes you have to enter your password when paying with a contactless card.
We understand that now contactless payments are even more in demand, so we continue to work with our partner banks and make changes that are most comfortable for people.
One of the significant steps Visa has taken by working with many of our government and industry partners is to quickly increase the limit for contactless transactions that do not require PIN authentication in 26 countries in the CEMEA region. For Kazakhstan, this limit has been increased to 25 thousand tenge.
This step makes daily transactions more convenient and allows shoppers to pay for larger purchases using a contactless payment card. New payment limit without entering PIN- the code is 79% higher than the previous one, which was 14 thousand tenge earlier.
Depending on the characteristics of other Central Asian markets, the limits in each of them have been increased by 25-56% (source: Visa data, April 2020).
Contactless payments give consumers the confidence to make the purchases they need and at the same time provide a stable and secure experience. In addition, the contactless cards use the same dynamic protection EMV® Chip as the contact chip. Each transaction generates a unique one-time code to ensure that even if the card data is stolen, the information cannot be used to create fake cards.
Author Bio:
Nikunj Gundaniya, Product manager Digipay.guru, one of the leading Digital wallet app development company, which provides mobile finance application development services. He is a visionary leader whose flamboyant management style has given profitable results for the company. He believes in the mantra of giving 100% to his work.